Mark Parsinen had already given Scotland Kingsbarns, and having done it once, the only course left open to him was to do it again, and perhaps better. He went looking along the coast and found his ground on the southern shore of the Moray Firth, between Inverness and Nairn. In 2006 he secured approval to build a golf resort there, and he brought in Gil Hanse to help design the first course. The views were the kind that stop conversation: across the water to the Black Isle, out toward Chanonry Point. The land itself was another matter. It was severe, and not naturally suited to golf. So Castle Stuart is a links that had to be argued into existence. Hanse and Parsinen took an aggressive approach, carving the course into a steep seaside bluff. The beach below was too narrow for golf holes, so the crew built a platform from fill excavated elsewhere on the site. To see what they started with, look past the 12th green, where the coastline still shows the land as it was before construction. The round opens with a leap of faith. On the 1st and again on the 10th, the tee is cut into the cliff side and the drive falls to the fairways below, a heart-pumping way to begin either half. Each nine runs three holes along the edge of a raised beach beside the firth before working inland and uphill, and the loops end on either side of a clubhouse at the edge of the cliffs. What makes the place feel different is the way it is stacked. As Pete Dye did at Whistling Straits, Hanse and Parsinen built the holes on a set of large tiers. From the higher sections the lower holes are concealed, and you feel almost constantly right on the water. Many greens carry infinity edges framed against the sea. Clever mounding keeps most holes in their own private room, the next revealed only once the last is played. That devotion to the view gives Castle Stuart a distinctly modern, American character. Yet the turf is firm, the sand-capped fairways are shaped with expert links-like contour, and wild, expansive waste bunkers fringe the fairways and green sites. It stands apart from the Highlands' older, more natural links, but it does not feel out of place among them. The holes carry that tension well. The 552-yard par five 6th runs to a long, narrow green held between a pair of beautiful waste bunkers. The tightly mown mounds before the 13th green were molded to emulate the silhouettes of the Highland mountains on the horizon, the hills borrowed and set down at your feet. Then comes the 17th, 220 yards on top of the cliffs, a daunting prospect so late in the round. From the par-3 5th you catch an attractive view of the real Castle Stuart, a 17th-century structure about 400 yards from the sixth green that now serves as the resort's premier hotel. The course opened in 2009, just as the Recession clamped down on golf, and Parsinen put his plans to expand on hold. Still, the professionals came. The Scottish Open arrived in 2011 after fifteen years at Loch Lomond, and unprecedented summer storms cut it to 54 holes. Luke Donald, then world number one, won by four. In 2012 Jeev Milkha Singh beat Francesco Molinari in a play-off, and in 2013 Phil Mickelson beat Branden Grace the same way, both at 17 under. When the event returned in 2016, Alexander Noren won by a stroke over Tyrrell Hatton. Parsinen died unexpectedly in 2019. In 2022 Cabot bought the resort, renamed it Cabot Highlands, and hired Tom Doak to build a second 18, Old Petty, set for preview play in 2025 and opened in 2026. There is a gentle joke in the geography. Old Petty's par-3 3rd sits right beside the castle, while Castle Stuart lies closer to the historic Old Petty Church. The names are crossed, but the ambition behind them runs straight.