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The 3rd hole at Nairn |
The feature that is most unique to Nairn is the revetted faced bunkers where the revetting appears to be a perfect moon shape. There is very little bunker below grade, in most cases, but the backs are built well up to create depth. The mounds behind are almost perfectly symmetrical at the top which makes the revetted face just as symmetrical. While this sounds too uniform, the effect is far more pleasant than I would have expected since you have all these steep moon shaped shadows along the fairways.
The third hole uses the moon shaped riveted bunkers for maximum impact. The faces are much higher than the surrounding approach and are very prominent because they are unusually high. The three bunkers that frame the fairway end up creating the most wonderful undulating bowl of an approach. Each bunker adds a beautiful twist to the roll of the approach since each is about 3 feet above grade. The effect is one I can easily emulate with any natural plateau green site.
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The awesome 5th Hole at Nairn |
The 6th and 7th seem plain despite their proximity to the ocean and I must admit I wasn’t expecting much coming in at that point. Where I got a great surprise was at the 10th. The 10th and 12th play slightly downhill all the way and look directly out and down the coastline. These were both excellent examples of framing a view using the gorse to point the eye at the ocean beyond. The gorse used this was felt very similar to tree lined Parkland holes other than the fact you could occasionally look over the top. The two holes were also another excellent example of how running holes on a 45 to the ocean provides the best panoramic view of a coastline. The fact that both holes had no backdrop just made the views even more spectacular.
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The downhill 15th at Nairn |
I mentioned to Robert that if I had this property I would have routed it differently. I would begin away from the ocean and taken you to and from the ocean multiple times. I would have tried to have at least one or two holes playing directly out at the ocean. In particular, at the far end of the course I would have turned to play directly at the ocean. I feel at Nairn, like many traditional links, having all the ocean holes at the start made the course the returning holes almost guaranteed to be less than the holes going out.
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