Nairn Golf Club

Nairn Golf Club occupies a narrow strip of tumbling linksland along the Moray Firth, about a mile from the mouth of the River Nairn. Archie Simpson, keeper of the green at Royal Aberdeen, established the original routing in 1887. Three years later, Old Tom Morris revised the course, extending it west along the beach. James Braid visited three times in the early 20th century and made substantial changes, particularly to the opening holes of the back nine. He also adjusted the club's nine-hole Newton course, which Nairn professional James Nelson had designed in 1924.

The championship course stayed largely the same over the next nine decades. Then, starting in 2018, Tom Mackenzie of the firm Mackenzie & Ebert oversaw an extensive renovation. Mackenzie built new greens on the first and seventh holes, enlarged the famous 14th green, reshaped green surrounds on more than half the holes, reconstructed every fairway bunker in a naturalized style, and installed numerous new forward and back tees.

Nairn exudes old-school links character. Its out-and-back routing, human-sized undulation, firm turf, and casual, friendly atmosphere represent the best traditions of the Scottish game. Unfortunately, some of Mackenzie’s recent alterations feel out of place. The flash-faced, rough-edged fairway bunkers and scooped greenside runoffs have little relationship to the course’s history and, in future decades, will likely be recognizable as products of the current era of golf architecture. Nonetheless, Nairn remains a delightful place to play and a fine test of golf.

Take Note…

Center of the maze. Nairn’s archive room, tucked into a corner of the clubhouse’s second floor, is a must-visit. Alongside an interesting selection of memorabilia, it contains an outstanding collection of books, records, and reports. The members deserve a lot of credit for cultivating this space in recent years and for sharing it so enthusiastically with visitors.

From salmon to sausages. Between the ninth green and 10th tee, you’ll find two buildings: a peak-roofed “bothy” (the regional word for a small shelter) and a turf-covered icehouse. These were built in 1877, 10 years before the golf course opened, and functioned for decades as the Easter Delnies Fishing Station, a salmon fishery. Today, the club operates the bothy as a halfway house and uses the icehouse for storing drinks.

Old Tom’s middle finger. Members say that the last remaining vestige of Old Tom Morris’s design work at Nairn is the eighth hole, a short par 4 with one of the scariest greens I’ve encountered. Perched on a natural knob, the green runs away from the line of play and spills into steep, chaotically contoured runoffs on all sides. You might drive it, but you might also miss it from 30 yards.

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