{"id":66,"date":"2011-07-13T01:38:04","date_gmt":"2011-07-13T01:38:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/daviddesmith.com\/?p=66"},"modified":"2013-05-10T00:49:53","modified_gmt":"2013-05-10T00:49:53","slug":"royaldornochwearsthecrown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/daviddesmith\/golf\/66\/royaldornochwearsthecrown","title":{"rendered":"Royal Dornoch Wears the Crown"},"content":{"rendered":"

To celebrate Open Championship week, I thought I\u2019d post a profile each day between now and Sunday of one of my favorite links courses in Great Britain and Ireland.\u00a0 If you haven\u2019t done battle with these courses, you surely should.
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A truly regal setting<\/p><\/div>\n

My Favorite Royal<\/strong><\/p>\n

Royal St. George\u2019s, site of the 2011 Open Championship, is a challenging champonship course \u2013 but it\u2019s not my favorite \u201croyal.\u201d\u00a0 With apologies to Royal Troon, Royal Birkdale, Royal Liverpool and the rest \u2013 and with most sincere apologies to the newest royal, Comely Kate, (a.k.a. Her Royal Highness The Duchess of Cambridge) \u2013 I have to go on record as saying that Royal Dornoch is unquestionably the fairest of them all.<\/p>\n

Royal Dornoch Golf Club<\/a>, which dates back to 1877, occupies some of the most exhilarating golfing terrain a links-lover will ever lay eyes on.\u00a0 Old Tom Morris had a hand in its initial design, which was modified some few years later by Club Secretary John Sutherland when the gutty replaced the featherie and the course needed a wee bit of lengthening.\u00a0 King Edward VII bestowed royal status on the club in 1906.\u00a0 Course architect Donald Ross did a stint here as golf pro and superintendent. And golfers have been making the trek north to Dornoch ever since.<\/p>\n

The course\u2019s setting 45 minutes north of Inverness is timeless, with sweeping views of the sea and towering gorse bushes that when they\u2019re flowering in early summer light up the sides of the course\u2019s bounding fairways.\u00a0 It’s a place that just feels completely authentic;\u00a0 the challenges presented by the golf course most certainly are.<\/p>\n

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The battleship-deck green at Dornoch's 14th, "Foxy"<\/p><\/div>\n

It\u2019s been said that Ross developed his liking for inverted saucer greens and some of his general theories about hole design from his time at Dornoch.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know if that\u2019s true or not, but the out-and-back layout of the championship course at Dornoch could certainly give lessons in what constitutes a great test of golf.\u00a0 There are short holes like the opening and second holes, where mishit wedges can easily lead to double-bogeys.\u00a0 There are devilish holes like the par-3 6th<\/sup>, with its vexing plateau green.\u00a0 There are holes by the sea overlooking a beach that seems all but untouched by human history.\u00a0 And then there\u2019s \u201cFoxy,\u201d by my measure one of the top 10 golf holes in the world.<\/p>\n

\u201cFoxy\u201d is the 14th<\/sup> hole, a bunkerless 445-yard par 4 that calls for a draw off the tee and a fade into the green, which is perched atop a promontory that only a high, soft approach shot will hold.\u00a0 Miss the green, and you\u2019ll be bumping-and-running up a steep rise to a green 10 feet above your shoes.\u00a0 It\u2019s a thoroughly natural hole without a trace of conceit.\u00a0 It needs none.<\/p>\n

After your round here, be sure to venture up to the clubhouse lounge and pay tribute to Andrew Carnegie, who donated what must surely be one of golf\u2019s most spectacular trophies to the club \u2013 the Carnegie Shield.\u00a0 This spectacular silver prize, which is awarded each summer at the conclusion of an open competition, is the size of a manhole cover and the most ornate trophy a golfer could ever kiss.<\/p>\n

Better yet, download an entry form for the competition from the club’s Web site and see if you get lucky in the ballot.\u00a0 You\u2019re too late for this year, but there\u2019s always 2012.<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To celebrate Open Championship week, I thought I\u2019d post a profile each day between now and Sunday of one of… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":82,"featured_media":67,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,19507,2226,20890,24425,17],"tags":[80478,78532,78870,72808,79103,4818,79657,79994,51338,80325,75656],"class_list":["post-66","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-golf","category-havershambaker","category-perrygolf","category-golftravel","category-britishopen","category-courses-and-travel","tag-theduchessofcambridge","tag-royaldornoch","tag-royaltroon","tag-royalstgeorges","tag-royalliverpool","tag-inverness","tag-andrewcarnegie","tag-carnegieshield","tag-donaldross","tag-johnsutherland","tag-openchampionship"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/daviddesmith\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/54\/2011\/07\/Dornoch-5th-tee.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/daviddesmith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/daviddesmith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/daviddesmith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/daviddesmith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/82"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/daviddesmith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/daviddesmith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":76,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/daviddesmith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66\/revisions\/76"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/daviddesmith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/daviddesmith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/daviddesmith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/daviddesmith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}