Elgin Golf Club

Elgin Golf Club: if the coastal links courses on the Moray Firth are giving you a hard time, Elgin may have just the answer ... and that's not a reference to the remarkable ruins of a centuries-old Catholic cathedral which stands in the town. Elgin also boasts a pleasant and relatively easy-going parkland golf course.

Typically kept in excellent condition, this predominantly tree-lined layout, offers an enjoyable and scenic round. The layout comprises predominantly straightaway holes (with a couple of notable doglegging exceptions), which will test your unswerving accuracy from the tee. Stray too far offline and trees or OOB awaits. There's also plenty of small fairway and greenside bunkers to keep you honest around the excellent greens. No surprise the locals have dubbed this course the "Wentworth of the North".

Elgin offers a potential source of solace for the weather-beaten "links" golfer, in so far as it contrasts with the area's many storied (but often windswept) coastal courses. Rather than sea and beach views, Elgin's attractions include views over the town of Elgin and away to the Moray coast to the north, and hills stretching inland to the distant Cairngorm Mountains to the south.

Pick of the holes: the par-3 15th (Lime Kiln), as its name implies, comes with former lime kilns once used by local industry and agriculture.