A glorious setting and a warm welcome to visiting golfers - that is Nairn. Founded in 1887 Nairn is very much a traditional links with the opening holes stretching out along the shoreline. Created from a wilderness of whins and heather, this is a traditional Scottish links course, which has been improved over time by such golfing greats as Old Tom Morris and James Braid to make it one of the best championship courses in Scotland.

Nairn Golf Club hosted the 37th Walker Cup in 1999 and is a regular venue for a range of Scottish national championships. The club was also chosen as the venue for the British Amateur Championship in 1994.

Nairn provides a fine test of golf and with the abundant heather, great sea of gorse and the distant mountains providing a spectacular backdrop, this is a veritable haven.

Royal Dornoch is considered the finest northerly course in the world, and no other course offers as great a feeling of getting away from it all or better provides the pieces of natural seaside beauty, challenge and enjoyment and shot values.

After the second hole at Royal Dornoch, you round a corner past a hedge and golfing heaven breaks loose. Holes are visible everywhere, the North Sea frames the right, mountains are ahead and hills lie to your left. You'll see people walking their dogs, cycling or wandering along a path up above. In late April and May the banks of whins are a carpet of yellow. Although it's a private course, Dornoch sits on public land, meaning that visitors are welcome.

The fairways are inviting as they ramble this way and that, and golfers may feel encouraged to take a big swing and still stay on course. But simply hitting the fairway is rarely enough. It's no good, for instance, to hit the right side of the fairway on "Foxy," the par-four, 445-yard 14th hole, because the green isn't visible from there. It's hidden behind a sand hill that cuts into the fairway. Better to drive down the left side then try to contrive a shot that finds the green, which is set on a precipice at nearly 90 degrees to the fairway.