The people who make the links
Meet the people behind Brora’s Highland links — and plan your own day beside the North Sea.
Today at Brora
Check course status with the club →Local readings are currently unavailable. Check the Brora forecast →
The hands that keep Brora true.
From the first preparations on the course to the welcome after your round, people make this place special.
Director of Golf
Gary Dingwall
Golf advice, equipment and a welcome before your round. Speak to the team about making the most of your time on the links.
Course Manager
James MacBeath
Early starts and careful work keep the links ready for the day. Meet the people behind the fairways and greens.
Clubhouse & the books
Craig Sutherland & Sue Bohlmann
The welcome continues beyond the eighteenth green. Behind the clubhouse are the people who keep the club running.
General Manager
David Gemmell
A club is a community as well as a course. The team connects life on the links with the village around it.
Links, beach, river, village.
Brora means “river with a bridge” in Old Norse. The course sits where the River Brora meets the North Sea — the same shore the village has worked for salt, wool, coal, and whisky.
Braid laid it out. Thomson fell in love with it.
1891 · 1924
James Braid · five-time Open Champion
On 2 November 1891 a public meeting in the Library Institute formed Brora Golf Club. Membership was two shillings and sixpence. The course began as nine holes, grew to eighteen around 1900, and in 1924 Braid arrived by train, walked the land, and left the same day. For £25 plus travelling expenses he submitted the plan that still stands.
He was one of the Great Triumvirate with Vardon and Taylor, first chairman of the PGA, and a designer who put things where they ought to be — without earthmovers. Brora is his most northerly memorial in his native Scotland, and the home of the James Braid Golfing Society.
1995
Peter Thomson · five Opens, one unannounced visit
In 1995 Thomson and his wife paid the green fee, played away, and by the eighteenth a small crowd had gathered. He called Brora “the most natural links course in the world,” and later: “When James Braid first set eyes on the land that is now Brora golf club he must have felt the same elation I did.”
“I pray it will continue and last as long as the world.” The club still holds the pictures and memorabilia he left behind. Tom Watson, another five-time Open champion, later joined Braid and Thomson as an honorary member.
“I had a very difficult time with it. I’d like to play it again. I’d like to challenge it again. But it was very good.”
Make a little time for the village.
Brora is a working Highland village: once coal, salt pans, wool, bricks, and the most northerly pit in Britain. The wool mill brought the first electricity in the north of Scotland — locals called it Electric City. Clynelish still makes whisky. Brora Rangers have played at Dudgeon Park since 1922. The clock tower is a war memorial.
The golf club is one of the largest employers after the distillery. Visitors stay, eat, and drink in a place of about 1,200 people. Members pass down stories, welcome juniors, and keep a 19th-century club from becoming a postcard.
Enquire about a visit
A little planning. A great day out.
Before you travel
Check current green fees, visitor arrangements and course updates with the club.
Visit the official club website →Find the first tee
Golf Road, Brora, Sutherland, KW9 6QS.
Get directions →Ask the team
For opening hours, equipment hire and group visits, contact the club before setting off.
Call +44 (0) 1408 621417