Tom Doak’s New Course Design In Scotland Features Rare Routing Element

Tom Doak and the Cabot team have unveiled plans for the new course being built at Cabot Highlands in Inverness, Scotland. The 18-hole layout, which will join the existing Castle Stuart course designed by the late Mark Parsinen and Gil Hanse, is situated near the property’s 400-year-old castle and will meander through hillsides and expansive open land, with a handful of holes on or along the water.

Notable features from the routing map include an old fishing boat and farmhouse, the wooden bridge that crosses a tidal estuary separating two parts of the course, the location of an expanded 11,000-square-foot clubhouse, and the downhill third hole that plays alongside Castle Stuart.

But perhaps most fascinating is the unusual layout of the 1st and 18th holes: a pair of par 4s with fairways that directly crossover one another. While some older golf courses in Scotland, and elsewhere, incorporated crossing holes because of spatial limitations, it’s a design element that’s exceedingly rare in modern golf architecture.

At Doak’s new course at Cabot Highlands, the opening and closing holes are being built on the former practice range — a space a bit too narrow for two parallel par 4 holes. But the location is special. So, as a solution, both tee shots and golfers from the two holes will cross paths in the same shared area.

“There are quite a few courses in the world that have crossover holes and are able to manage the traffic okay,” said Doak. “I built one at Tara Iti (New Zealand) a few years ago and hardly anyone even mentions it.

“It works just fine if you get the timing right, so that players are hitting into the fairway from both directions when the fairway is clear, and then they basically walk past each other on the way to their tee ball,” Doak added.

The 18th hole will play diagonally back toward the Castle Stuart clubhouse while the 1st hole will play across it toward the water, with views from the elevated tee of a large suspension bridge and the town of Inverness in the distance.

“The fact that it’s the first tee on the new course and there will probably be a starter right there should minimize any safety issues,” said Doak. “So the only times you’ll have trouble is when someone pops up or tops a tee shot and then might have to wait for the group on the other hole to get clear before they hit their second.”

Doak said one consideration was to keep the two holes apart with an out of bounds area to the right, as was done at historic venues like St Andrews and North Berwick.

“I was concerned it might look like we were trying to copy The Old Course, and without the town, any copy would fall far short of the original,” said Doak.

As a result, the new course at Cabot Highlands will feature a distinctly memorable start and finish when it opens for play in 2025. Whether golfers and/or armchair architects are in favor or against the unique design, it’s sure to get people talking. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing.