ROYAL DORNOCH CLIMBS WORLD TOP 1OO LEADER BOARD

Royal Dornoch’s Championship Course has jumped five places to move into the Top 10 in GOLF magazine’s latest Top 100 Courses in the World list.

The famous links is now placed at No 10 in the rankings, which were unveiled in the magazine’s December 2019 edition.

It is second only to St Andrews’ Old Course as the highest ranking of 13 Scottish courses to make the list.  It is also the third highest ranked of the 30 courses in Great Britain and Ireland (after the Old Course and Royal Country Down).

Royal Dornoch’s move into the Top 10 helped remove the famous Pebble Beach – which has staged six men’s major championships – to No 11.

The list was compiled by GOLF’s group of 80 well-travelled course raters who assigned values to a list of more than 430 eligible courses to come up with the final rankings.

They said of Royal Dornoch: “This seaside classic is worth the journey. After Tom Watson played here before his Open defence in 1981, he remarked that the experience was ‘the most fun I’ve ever had a on a golf course.’

Royal Dornoch general manager Neil Hampton said: ““We are delighted that the Championship Course once again features in the Top 10 of a world’s best list. The quality of the course, along with its history – including our connection to Old Tom Morris who laid out the first 18-hole course, and Donald Ross, our first professional, who was inspired to become one of the world’s leading golf architects, is a combination make Royal Dornoch a special place.”