Doak in the dirty at Old Petty on what was to become the 3rd hole. Pic - Clyde Johnson
It’s rare for a new course to be built in Scotland these days, it’s even rarer for Tom Doak to be the architect. I spoke to Tom about his love of Highlands golf and what to expect when Old Petty opens at Cabot Highlands.
When did you first travel to the Highlands and do you have any lasting memories from that trip?
I first went up there in August of 1982 after having caddied in St Andrews for a month or so. When I asked the St Andrews greenkeeper, Walter Woods, what he thought of Dornoch, he said he'd never been, because it was such a long drive - it took a good ninety minutes longer back then to go inland around the two firths.
I asked the secretary at Dornoch if I should go around to see Brora, the home club of Jim Miller who was the reigning Carnegie Shield winner. The secretary said not to bother. I think he just wanted to keep me in Dornoch another day and take another green fee - it was £10 at the time!
You have chosen Royal Dornoch as one of your favourite links courses, what is it about the course that you enjoy and what would you encourage students of architecture to study when there?
The more I've thought about it over the years, I have come to the conclusion that Dornoch is the Scottish links most likely to appeal to Americans. It’s so pretty and after the opening holes you always have a view of the water.
I was a better player back then and I admired the difficulty of the approach shots, most famously at the 2nd and 6th.
But the other thing that sets the course apart from most links is a really interesting set of greens. Though most of them are of the plateau type, they have beautiful contours and beautiful features in the surrounds to present all kinds of interesting recovery shots.
What other memories do you have from that early visit?
I stopped at Pitlochry, Boat of Garten and Strathpeffer on my way up. My most vivid memory was taking an iron for safety on the 15th at Boat of Garten because it looked threatening, and walking up there to discover that I'd taken the perfect club to hit into the gully!
Besides Dornoch, the other course that prompted a deep reaction from me was Cruden Bay. I remember calling home from the phone box in Port Erroll, just across from the fourth tee, to tell my mom it was the most dramatic course I'd ever seen.
I don't still think that, but it was so exciting to discover the course for the first time. I had only ever seen one photo of it before I got there, and had no idea what to expect. I feel badly for people nowadays who have seen everything on Instagram before they even get to a new place.
Your second Scottish course, Old Petty at Cabot Highlands, is opening this year. Did the existence of the Gil Hanse Castle Stuart course influence your design?
Certainly. Some of the little bulkheaded hazards and sharp edges were things I'd like to have experimented with, but we didn't want to look like we were copying what Gil had done, so we had to find a different direction.
Our idea was to try and model it after the earliest links courses, where the playing corridors weren't so clearly defined and the hazards were less formalized.
For most of the project we refrained from building any revetted bunkers or anything that looked like one, the idea that all pot bunkers have to be revetted has only been around for 50-75 years, and it's a necessity that a lot of the smaller links courses can't really afford. So we wanted to see if we could build compelling holes just relying on the contours around the green to make the approach shots challenging.
In the end I didn't want it to feel like we were cheating the visitor out of the pot bunker experience entirely, so I challenged everyone on the crew to locate one or two bunkers, with the caveat that the bunker would be named after them, so they'd better be prepared to live with their choices! Clyde Johnson, Chris Haspell and Angela Moser all contributed their bunkers, as did I. But when we tried to get the owner, Ben, to add one he didn't want to do it.
Old Petty bunkering. Render by Harris Kalinka
How easy was the decision to cross the first and eighteenth holes and why did you go that route? Do you have any worries about how it will work in practice.
Those two holes had to be squeezed into a narrowish space that used to be the driving range, with dunes at the margins pushing everyone back to the center. It’s a little like The Old Course or North Berwick, except a bit narrower, and without the charm of the town.
I worried about the safety of having golfers aiming toward the center of the space from both tees to keep from slicing their shots up into the dunes. I figured if we could cross the holes and keep them short enough, most people will drive past the point where they cross, into the full width of the space, and play will flow smoothly. It also helps a lot that there will be a starter on the first tee to monitor the situation. I'm not so sure I would have done the same thing out at the far end of the course.
Is there one part of the course you particularly enjoy?
We have several holes in the routing with more of an inland setting, and we are very happy with how those fit in with the rest. Some of them required quite a bit of shaping, but we didn't go overboard trying to create "dunes" so we could market it as a links course.
I like the different perspectives of the castle as you wander around the course, the old copse of beech trees on the hill that you play around on #7 and #10, and the views across to the Black Isle on #10 and #13 all add character to the course.
It just feels like you're out for a good walk on lovely property, following your nose.
Old Petty is open for limited preview play in August 2025 and will be open fully from Spring 2026.
