Many readers of this blog will have read my blog entry No 405 about when Craig, Stu and I played the Castle Stuart course a few miles east of Inverness, way back in May 2011. More recently, Cabot Highlands bought that course and started building a second course, named the Old Petty, after the disused Old Petty Church that sits on the site. The Old Petty course was designed by Tom Doak, a leading course architect whose other Scottish course is the Renaissance Club, most famous for hosting the DP World Tour's Scottish Open in recent years. Old Petty opened for limited preview play in August 2025 before its formal grand opening in 2026. I played Old Petty on 22 August 2025 and was the 809th player to do so (your play number is on the back of your scorecard). I was joined by Douglas Mill, a close friend who has also played every course in Scotland and we were paired up with a couple of really nice guys from Holland, over here on a golf trip. None of us had even seen the course before. We knew that it was more inland than its neighbour the Castle Stuart, and that it was intended to be an equal partner to that course, creating a high quality resort destination, but what would Old Petty be like? Would it be easier or more challenging, and in time be a future modern links that would rank high in Top 100 Course rankings?
Old Petty will be a meaty 7080 yards Par 71 from the Black tees but when we played it, the choice lay between the Whites at 6580 yards and the Greens at a more manageable 6205 yards. Our Dutch playing partners opted for the Whites with Douglas and I trying the Greens. As we'd expected, the course was a long way from being the mature modern links test that you'd find at the likes of Castle Stuart, Renaissance and at Trump Aberdeen. I'd worked as a caddy at Renaissance for over 5 years, so I'd some experience of Tom Doak's design style. Castle Stuart is very much a 9 out and 9 back course but it was immediately obvious that Old Petty would be making far greater use of the compass. It was equally apparent that Doak's liking for highly contoured greens+ would be in play here - and that we'd all have trouble reading them! I suspect that Old Petty will be even more challenging than Castle Stuart, based on our playing experiences.
The course starts with a 370 Yard Par 4 playing slightly downhill from the tee, then blind uphill to the green. A large grassy mound mid-fairway was easily avoided but my approach found a bare and crusty lie short right of the green and an opening 3 putt was a poor start. Next, from another elevated tee, was the 350 Yard par 4 2nd. The drive is quite intimidating, requiring a 200 yard carry over what I suspect will become medium length rough. I missed the narrow green back left so another dropped shot followed. This is the 3rd hole, a downhill 195 Yard Par 3 with and our first sighting of the Castle, completed in 1625.
There were no greenside bunkers and Mr Doak knows more than me about course design, but I'd have added one front right of the green to toughen approaches from that side. An easy first par.
The 4th was one of the best holes on the Front 9. Your drive needs to fly some swampy looking reeds and hold the fairway, which tilts towards said hazard. Next, you need to find the narrow green, avoiding a long bunker that runs the full length of the green and try to make sense of the contoured green. I was happy enough with a bogey there. Next, another very good hole, this time a 375 Yard Par 4, as shown here, with an optional stop for refreshments in the hut beside the green.
Another bunkerless green and another bogey but we were enjoying the course - so far. Sadly, I made a complete mess of the Par 3 6th hole. At 160 yards, this is should have been a simple enough par opportunity, but I missed the green and somehow scraped a treble bogey! Further poor play led to a lamentable gross 47 out over the Front 9 and my playing partners weren't doing much better. The Back 9 is almost 200 yards longer so I we'd all have to improve if we were to finish reasonably well. However, the 10th is where Old Petty really gets tough. This is a 540 Yard Par 5, with your second shot played blind over a hill to a dog leg right fairway which narrows to a sliver closer to the green, as shown below.I'll spare myself the details of how I scrambled a 9! Not good.
Next, the formidable 11th, a downhill 410 Yard Par 4 requiring a really accurate tee shot to avoid OOB right and waste area and rough to the left. Another really good hole but another bogey too. The steeply uphill 12th was a really physical test and I could have done without the double bogey there! The 13th tee was probably the highest point on the course but this was my favourite hole. A steeply downhill (thankfully!) 350 Yard Par 4 played to an infinity green with the seas in the background. Just lovely -
We'd hit decent short approach shots to the green but the softness of the fairway meant we were all slightly short. An easy par for me, followed by others on 14 and 15. I'm not a great fan of long Par 3s but at least I'd undone some of the damage caused by my 10th hole! the 15th was difficult, with a narrow fairway and trouble aplenty closer to the green, so a par there was good.
I'm not sure about the 16th, a 390 Yard Par 4, with a steep uphill approach shot to the green. This is a view from the White medal tee. The carry over the 5 foot high reeds immediately in front was around 180 Yards and only marginally shorter than that from our Green tee. We wondered whether shorter hitters or higher handicappers would cope from either tee! My uphill approach shot to the highly contoured green was blind but a double bogey was disappointing.
This is a view from the 17th tee, our final Par 3 and the shortest hole on the course, at 135 yards.
The tee shot is uphill and we couldn't see the bottom of the pin or the green itself, but I managed another par after my short pitch had finished a yard away. A final par 4 up the last and I'd be happy enough. Thankfully the 18th was a fairly simple hole, 375 yards, slightly uphill, with a wide fairway. The approach played slightly longer than I'd expected but I'd somehow found the green a mere 15 feet away, so a closing par gave me a gross 92, with 31 putts. I'm not sure what my playing handicap would have been but call it 11 (off my current 9.9 exact handicap) and I had a reasonable score with a couple of real howlers on 6 and 10. Not bad. A final view, looking up the 18th to the clubhouse.
Old Petty will certainly mature in the years ahead and be a strong partner to its neighbour, the Castle Stuart course. Indeed, I suspect Old Petty will be the stronger and more demanding of the two. I also wonder whether Old Petty will in due course feature as prominently in Top 100 Course rankings. I enjoyed the course but I'd go for the Castle Stuart layout if I played at Cabot Highlands again.
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