The Highlands - Nairn - 6705 yds - Par 72

It is only in relatively recent times that Nairn Golf Club in Morayshire has enjoyed the recognition that this truly great links course deserves. For many years it has been something of a sleeping giant overshadowed by Royal Dornoch further to the north.

But a successful Amateur Championship in 1994 and a famous victory for Great Britain and Ireland in the 1999 Walker Cup matches put Nairn right on the golfing map where those who had already experienced its uncompromising challenge always knew it should be.

Tom Simpson laid out the original course for the princely sum of £36 back in 1887 and Old Tom Morris made six pounds and ten shillings addition to it three years later. But the layout as it survives today owes most to the hand of the inimitable James Braid, the five-time Open Champion who refined and expanded the layout during three visits between 1910 and 1926.