Brora Golf Club

What a great wee course. Lovely views, tricky greens in the classic style. Quite hard to find the green if you get off the fairway. Course was in fine condition when we played it, the greens were fast and true, and the fairways were Ok. Can recommend it - much better value than Royal D down the road.

Played in mid September as part of our matchplay tour. Excellent venue, and a must for links golfers. Great views, excellent condition and a classic out and back layout. Course was open and thus forgiving of errant drives, but not easy. I can imagine at other times of the year the rough may swallow many more balls. It is not as dramatic as Royal Dornoch down the road, but is less than 1/2 the price. It was the surprise of our tour, and next time we play this area again, we will move our base from Nairn to around here to ensure we can play it more than once. Staff in the club, from the secretary, pro-shop and bar were all very helpful and welcoming.

Just an update as I had the pleasure of playing Brora again last week whilst visiting the area on business. I said I'd love to play it in the summer, now I have I love the place even more. A terrific true links course and I've increased my challenge rating having now played the full course on proper tees.. If you're up that neck of the woods, this is a must play.

This was the second stop on a golf tour in July 2007 by four Swedish golfers, and for some of us, our first contact with links golf. We loved the natural setting of the course which made us understand why in the past courses were 'laid out' rather than 'designed'. Tees, fairways and greens were in very good condition. The fencing around the greens (to keep the sheep off) did not bother us at all although we had been a bit doubtful of this feature beforehand. The holes offer good variation and many of them are memorable. My personal favourites are the two 'Burn' holes (5 and 7) and the par 3 'Snake' (hole 13).

Played Brora over the past week in our pre-season tour of the highlands. We never got chance to play it on previous visits so we made sure it was on our list this year. The wind was well and truly blowing on our visit, "helping" on some holes and certainly not helping on others! The outward 9 takes you out in a north easterly direction to the far reaches of the course, the back nine brings you home in a south westerly direction. It is a true links course, with the elements playing a massive part in your ability to score. The fairways are pretty wide but in all honesty it is difficult to lose a ball here even if you don't find fairway. That said, stray too far and it becomes very difficult to find some of these greens. There was plenty of run, an indication of just how well it drains, it would be interesting to play it in the height of summer. The greens ran extremely well considering the time of year, the quickest we played all week, and were a real test for even the best readers of greens - is there a flat putt to be found on any green? "Gimmes" were certainly in short supply! Their are four par 3s on the course, one pointing to each of the four points of a compass. We particularly liked the "sea hole" 9th and "home hole" 18th, a real challenge at 190 yards to an elevated green into the biting wind! The Clubhouse doesn't look the most inviting from the outside, but the facilities were fine inside, the pro shop was well stocked and we were provided with the warmest of welcomes. Well worth a visit.

17/09/2006. Played the Links Open Stableford for the princely sum of £12....what an absolute snip! It was worth paying the entrance fee just to stand on the first tee and take in the view. As mentioned by others below, the course is more open than many in the area, but you still need good course management to avoid the well placed bunkers and to approach some of the smallish greens from the right angle. The greens themselves are very tricky, with hardly a straight putt on any of them. I can imagine this course being a real horror when the wind blows, but on a calm sunny Sunday in September....well, you'd be hard pushed to find a better way of spending £12!

As a rider to what I have said above, the club has now posted the results of the Links Open. Of the 102 entrants, there were only 10 rounds of 36 points or better....and that on a perfect day for weather. Hardly the pushover course others would have you believe?

Scotland 2006 Day 4. This couldn't be more different to the previous day at Tain – here the wispy rough (or even total absence of it) thanks to the four-legged greenkeepers mean you can pretty much get away with murder off the tee, and boy did we take advantage of it. Across the vast majority of the course it's almost impossible to lose a ball. But that's not to say it's totally non-punitive. Coming into some of these greens from the wrong angle can make life considerably harder. The par 3s stand out here but aside from that there aren't many hugely memorable holes. Looking back, it's difficult to distinguish between some of the par 4s going out and a couple of the par 4s coming back into the wind even felt like a bit of a bland slog. And no I'm not a Yank whose idea of golfing purity is island greens, target golf and GPS buggies. The naturalness of this course is something that should be treasured. But I just don't quite see what it is doing in Golf World's latest Top 100, albeit scraping in at 99. This may the home of the James Braid Golfing Society but, for me, it's nowhere near as good as Braid's anarchic creation at Perranporth. Or for that matter, another Braid course where we're headed tomorrow - the Boat of Garten. 7.25/10 'Young P'

I played this and four other courses (Golspsie, Tain, Dornoch Struie and Reay) with two friends in September 2002. Whilst all were excellent Brora was much our favourite. The lack of rough did mean that we lost fewer balls, but the landscape of the course and the views of the coast made it more than special. It makes our £25s spent in and around London very dull in comparison - we'll be back.

In late October with the sun shining, our host John Tuach as my playing companion, the captain greeted us and wanted just a ten pound green fee each for us to play this fabulous course(their winter rate). The day could not have been bettered and will rate as my all time bargain rounds of golf on a top quality course. Worth making the effort to seek out Brora GC. Chris G

We have just returned from our first trip to Scotland to play golf. I read everything I could get my hands on about Scottish links golf and was impressed with how often the name came up. We played Brora in the mid-afternoon of July 5. We had just played Royal Dornoch the previous day. We had the course almost entirely to ourselves on a day with little wind and a fair amount of sun. Although the purist wants wind on the links, the beautiful day was refreshing. We both loved the course. It felt like the most "natural" links we played during our trip. I had read that the rough was not as bad here because of sheep grazing on the course. This was true, but there was still plenty of places not to hit the ball. The par 3s were splendid, each pointing a different direction. The 1st, 16th and 17th holes were all excellent links par 4s in different ways. We stayed at the Marine Highland hotel where we found ourselves having a before-dinner pint in a room crowded with James Braid Society memoribelia. This may mean something to you only if you are in the society, but having read "A Season In Dornoch" by Lorne Rubenstein just months before, it gave me quite a start to see the Curate's Egg in a trophy case. We decided to make Dornoch our base on our next trip to Scotland. Brora had as much to do with that decision as Royal Dornoch did.

I played Brora for the first time this May and just loved it. The wind blew and the rain came down but still went round twice - definitely one of the best links courses I have played. The apres golf was pretty good too! Despite being very busy supper was found for six of us from nowhere- Brilliant!

I am an American who has immensely enjoyed playing more than 200 rounds of golf in Scotland during 12 trips there in the past 18 years. I have had the distinct pleasure of playing Brora on many occasions, and it is one of my 5 favorite Scottish seaside courses, in large part not only for its wonderful character, but also for its unspoiled natural beauty, its non-commercial aspects, and the fact that for me it is a truly spiritual golfing experience in a similar vein as delightful Machrihanish, another of my 5 favorites. Royal Dornoch, Nairn, and Cruden Bay complete that abbreviated list of my favorites. And just to show how much I love Carnoustie: Well, I somehow managed to carry my own bag for 19 rounds of golf on the championship course at Carnoustie, over 7 days, in 1986, on a weekly ticket that cost a grand total of just £42, the equal of about $65 at the time. Some value, and one of the most incredible weeks of golf I have ever had!

Really nice links course. V quiet when I played in April. People friendly. Very dry with reasonable greens despite previous rain. Only minor quibble was being unable to get any food after 2.30 Recommended for v pleasant golfing experience.

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Brora Was A Fun Course With A Strong Breeze Making Some Holes A Challenge. An Interesting Feature Was The Wires Around The Greens To Keep The Sheep From Eating Them! [email protected]

God Made This Golf Course, Please Don't Try To Improve On The Work. I Loved Playing This Course Because It Has Been Left In Its Natural State.

Brora Is Definitely Vaut Le Detour. I Have Played It Many Times Over The Past 15-20 Years In Conjunction With Regular Pilgrimages To Dornoch. Brora Is Not Dorncoh, But It Can Easily Hold Its Own In That Company. It Is As Much A True Scottish Golfing Experience As Any I Know--and I've Known A Very Very Lot Of Them.

I loved the course in spite of the weather (40 degrees F, 40 mph winds and riving rain. Totally natural and surprisingly varied given the out and back format. Moreover, the town looks to be alevly place to stay for a few days.

Now living in Sydney, Australia - but I miss my home course and all other Scottish courses -still the best courses in the world - from an ex-Brora resident.

Most enjoyable outing.People very friendly both on and off the course

A lovely links course with plenty of character. The green on the 8th and the 9th hole are particularly tricky, as Artic Terns are patrolling the beach next to greens where they have their nesting areas. If your ball ends up on the beach, which is adjacent to the greens, then don't think about retrieving them!