Royal Dornoch Golf Club Drives Ahead With 400 Year Celebrations
The internationally-renowned Royal Dornoch Golf Club has teed up a year-long celebration to mark 400 years of the game being played in the town.
Club Captain Jim Seatter literally started the ball rolling by driving off from the first tee using a special, hand-crafted hickory club. Head Professional Andrew Skinner put the old fashioned feathery ball in place using a pyramid of sand to set up the ‘driving in’ ceremony.
The ball was retrieved from the fairway by junior club member Cameron Welsh, 12, who received a memento of a specially struck silver ball marker with the 400 Years crest on the front. The Captain then raised a special flag outside the clubhouse signalling the start of the milestone year.
The 400 years of golf celebration will highlight the aspects that make the club, the town and the community an international destination for visitors.
The club, which is part of the Highland Golf Links partner organisation that promotes golf tourism, has been joined by local businesses, schools, community groups and sports clubs in marking the special anniversary.
The year will be filled with concerts, exhibitions, a gala dinner, a street party and a host of other events that celebrate the culture and sporting history of the area.
Highlights include a Royal Dornoch v Country Club of North Carolina v Donald Ross Society v Atlanta Athletic Club tournament and a Hickory Match involving the British Golf Collectors Society.
A new ‘Royal Dornoch 400’ tartan has been created and a special whisky launched to mark the occasion.
In addition, 2016 marks the culmination of three years of academic research by Wade Cormack in a PhD studentship at the University of the Highlands and Islands’ Centre for History in Dornoch. The golf club donated £54,000 towards the study on sport and culture around the Moray Firth.
Neil Hampton, Royal Dornoch’s General Manager, said: “It’s great to get the 400- year celebrations under way after a lot of planning and effort in getting to this stage.
“Dornoch takes great pride in its history and heritage, being one of the oldest locations where golf has been played in Scotland. The events over the coming year will commemorate the past and demonstrate how golf has helped shape the town, but they will also recognise that it is still a huge economic driver and can help further promote this area.”
The first known reference of golf being played in Dornoch is in 1616 when John, the 13th Earl of Sutherland, was sent to school in the town and his expenses showed that ten pounds annually was provided for “bowes, arroes, golff clubbes, and balls, with other necessars for his L[ordship’s] exercise”.
The expenses were paid by John’s uncle Sir Robert Gordon, an influential man in the court of King James VI and I, who became the earl’s tutor after the death of his father.
In 1620 the then 11-year-old John received a letter from Sir Robert advising him on becoming a successful leader, a calculated but kind master, a learned man and someone respected throughout the land. The letter included advice on how to select a proper wife and how to administer his estate effectively, as well as instructions on sport, education and ‘civility’.
He urged John to ‘Cherishe your countreymen and train them vp in all kynd of honest exercise, such as hunting, ryding, archerie, shooting with the gun, gofing, jumping, running, swimming and such lyk’.
Highland Golf Links also includes Castle Stuart Golf Links and The Nairn Golf Club as well as the Kingsmills Hotel and Culloden House Hotel, in Inverness and the Royal Golf Hotel in Dornoch. The group promotes Play and Stay destination breaks in the area.