Tom Doak breaks ground on new course in Inverness, Scotland

Golf Digest Middle East — Wed, 02 Aug 2023 05:42:52 +0000

Don Placek’s gorgeous rendering of the new Tom Doak course at Cabot Highlands in Scotland.

The construction of new golf holes is not a common sight in Scotland, but it’s happening in the Highlands just north of the town of Inverness where Tom Doak and his team have begun the construction of his original course at Cabot Highlands.

Located on Moray Firth just five minutes from Inverness airport, the expanded Cabot Highlands development includes the Castle Stuart course, designed by Gil Hanse and the late Mark Parsinen in 2009, the yet-to-be-named Doak course, a new clubhouse and upscale residences.

After working recently on true links sites at St Patrick’s in County Donegal, Ireland, and Te Arai in New Zealand, as well as in the malleable sandy soils of central Wisconsin at Sand Valley (building The Lido, opened this summer, and Sedge Valley, opening next summer), the Cabot Highland project poses a different type of challenge for Doak. Namely, creating a course that matches the splendour of the seaside site, and one that looks and plays like a links despite not having the links soils and undulations.

The Doak course will have many of the same views and perspectives at the neighbouring Castle Stuart course.

The Doak course will have many of the same views and perpectives at the neighboring Castle Stuart course

It might be assumed that natural links (defined basically as non-arable oceanside land with sandy soils, rumpled, dunelike movements and native fescues and other grasses and plants, sometimes gorse) occur around the coast of Scotland. Actually, only about 300 miles of the country’s 7,500-mile coast is considered links, or about 4 per cent. Links are rare and specific, and while the Inverness region possesses timeless links such as Nairn, Royal Dornoch and Brora, the section of land for the Doak course doesn’t fit the category.

The golf features at the new course will need to be imagined and constructed, like those at Castle Stuart were. The site, located on a bay just east and south of the existing courses, has its advantages, including lovely water views, holes that jump and play along a tidal estuary, brush past the Old Petty burial ground and cross to and fro over Rough Burn.

The holes are laid out like a grand prix course with parallel runs that chicane back and forth (one through four; 16 though 18), make a series of left-hand turns, switch back, then make a series of right-hand turns before hitting the homestretch along the edge of land, all illustrated gorgeously above by Don Placek of Renaissance Golf.

The specific details and nuance of the holes and their shaping will be developed in the field this autumn and next, with the opening of the course expected in 2025. Cabot Highlands and the Doak course adds another magnetic force that should not just attract players to the north of Scotland, but also keep them there longer.

The post Tom Doak breaks ground on new course in Inverness, Scotland appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

Castle Stuart added to Cabot portfolio, and plans revealed for a second course by Tom Doak

Golf Digest Middle East — Mon, 27 Jun 2022 14:30:32 +0000

By Derek Duncan
It’s a curious footnote that in the last 30 years, Americans have defined most of the new golf developments in Scotland. Jay Morrish and Tom Weiskopf were the first Americans to work in Scotland when they built Loch Lomond in the early 1990s. Tom Doak designed The Renaissance Club next door to hallowed Muirfield in 2007. Donald Trump’s difficulties in getting Trump International Golf Links in Aberdeen completed in 2011 were well documented but ultimately successful. And American developer Mark Parsinen worked closely with two American designers, Kyle Phillips and Gil Hanse, on a pair of major construction projects, Kingsbarns and Castle Stuart, respectively.

Cabot, the Canadian-based founders of golf destinations including Cabot Cape Breton and the under-development Cabot Saint Lucia, has acquired Castle Stuart in Inverness, near the Scottish Highlands. The course and surrounding master-planned resort community will be rechristened Cabot Highlands.

“Castle Stuart has been considered a benchmark of exceptional Scottish golf since it first opened thirteen years ago,” Ben Cowan-Dewar, CEO and co-founder of Cabot, said in a statement. “We are honored to be a steward of the land and carry the original vision for the property forward.” Amenities will include upscale cottages, retail, restaurants and additional outdoor recreations.

Castle Stuart was the second Scottish golf project by the late Parsinen, who passed away in 2019. The course, currently ranked No. 72 on the Golf Digest World’s 100 Greatest Courses list, was among the handful of original designs by Hanse and partner Jim Wagner that established their reputation among the leading modern golf architects, helping them land the coveted commission for the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympic course.

The addition of Cabot Highlands gives Cabot three of the top 100 international courses, along with Cabot Cliffs (No. 10) and Cabot Links (No. 39).

Just as compelling is the announcement of a planned second course by architect Tom Doak and his Renaissance Design group. Doak will get an important assist from associate Clyde Johnson, an English-born designer who lives in Scotland. A talented designer in his own right, Johnson has helped Doak build courses as far afield as Nebraska, Ireland and New Zealand. The Cabot Highlands project will be a well-deserved home game.

Though it looks the part, Castle Stuart is not a true links course. It was fabricated from farmland along the coast of Moray Firth. The second course will occupy similar land to the south and west of the original course. The low holes, close to the water, will be sand-capped for drainage and to enable the architects to create links-like features in the ground.

“I’ve been lucky to work on a lot of links sites and I appreciate the difficulty of trying to create artificial linksland,” Doak told Golf Digest. Though it’s not natural links, he notes the property has the advantages of the wind and a long coastal stretch along Moray Firth.

“It’s really a beautiful site in its own right — water frontage, creeks, and even a large stand of pine trees that we will play around,” Doak says. “So instead of creating big artificial dunes to focus views and such, we’ll focus on building smaller, rippling contours as are found on links courses the world over, plus a dynamic bunkering scheme.” It’s likely to be more akin to nearby Nairn, he says, with out and back holes strung through low hummocks of gorse and grass, than the vertical dunes of a Ballybunion.

Mike Keiser, the developer of Bandon Dunes who has partnered with Cowan-Dewar on several Cabot projects, knows that second courses are force multipliers that elevate remote places from curiosities to destinations. Castle Stuart gave golfers another compelling layover on their northward journey up the Scottish coast toward Royal Dornoch and Brora. Once the new course is completed (projected is expected to break ground in early 2023), Cabot Highlands will be its own port of call.

“Gil’s course had to attract an audience to go up to Inverness, where the new course only has to provide a contrast and deserve its place in the itinerary,” Doak says. “Oddly, that might free us up to build something compelling.”

The post Castle Stuart added to Cabot portfolio, and plans revealed for a second course by Tom Doak appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

Inverness Archives - Golf Digest Middle East

Tom Doak breaks ground on new course in Inverness, Scotland

Castle Stuart added to Cabot portfolio, and plans revealed for a second course by Tom Doak