Tain Golf Club & Glenmorangie Distillery, Tain, Scotland

Just across the Firth from Royal Dornoch lies the Royal Burgh of Tain, whose famous “16 men” craft the renowned Glenmorangie single-malts. Just as a tour of the distillery is a must, as they create some of the most legendary whiskys in the world, so is a visit to the town’s 18 holes at Tain Golf Club, designed by Old Tom Morris in 1890, a hidden gem worthy of similar accolades. A very old-fashioned links, it runs through penalizing gorse bushes, sandwiched between the mountains and beautiful spires of Tain on one side, and the sea on the other. Its most famous hole is the 11th, “The Alps,” as historic and traditional a Scottish golf hole as can be found in the country. Heading straight for the sea, the second shot must carry two giant mounds guarding the green, with the approach completely blind, the kind of hole that would never be designed today, rivaled only by Prestwick’s own Alps and Himalayas and Lahinch’s Klondyke and Dell holes in audacity!