Across the Dornoch Firth, just three and a half miles as the raven flies, lies Royal Dornoch, Tain's illustrious neighbour. Tain lives in that shadow. It sits on the eastern edge of an old town, sheltered between the estuary on one side and the mountains of Easter Ross on the other, and for many traveling golfers it has been at best an afterthought, the place passed on the way to somewhere famous. That is precisely why it rewards the ones who stop. The town carries its own weight of history. In 1066 King Malcolm III granted Tain its first charter, making it the oldest Royal Burgh in Scotland. The golf came much later, from the hands of Old Tom Morris. He laid out the course in 1889, when the club still went by the name St Duthus, and Tain counts 1890 as the year of its founding. The two dates sit side by side like the club taking a breath before it began. The accepted tale is that Old Tom surveyed the ground and found only fifteen places fit to hold a green, so the course opened with fifteen holes. It is the sort of stubbornness you forgive at once when you see what he chose. His greens swing between big, sloping platforms and low, wavy surfaces that feel like extensions of the fairway, and many of his holes play across the property's most wonderful ground. The rest of the course came later. John Sutherland, the former Club Secretary at Royal Dornoch, revised the layout, adding new holes after the club acquired more land, perhaps as early as 1894. By 1911 there were eighteen holes, a new clubhouse, and the name Tain. Sutherland's holes slot in nicely beside Old Tom's, carrying on the charm of the original and finding fresh undulating ground of their own. A handful of Old Tom's holes survive in some form, and eleven of his green sites still carry play today, his hand still steering the round from the ends of the holes. What you play now is 6,404 yards from the medal tees, and accuracy matters far more than length. Tain is part links and part heathland. You carry tangled heather onto rumpled fairways edged by dense gorse, which is stunning in full bloom. The 2nd, called River, sets the terms early. It is a par four of 391 yards from the back tees, with the Aldie Burn meandering through it and a ridge across the fairway that falls away toward the water. An approach struck with too little conviction finds the burn, which seems to have been waiting all along. Then comes the 11th, Alps, across some of the loveliest linksland on the course. The fairway runs out to the foot of two enormous dunes standing sentry, and the green hides beyond them near the sea. You pick a line, swing with more faith than evidence, and walk over the top to learn your fate. Coming home, the par threes at 16 and 17 are both strong one-shotters, and the burn returns to catch the tee shot that strays. Even the ground under Tain keeps its secrets. A farm sits among the holes of the back nine, and not long ago, after it changed hands, the new owner struck a main line while working the field and flooded two holes. In a town this old, the maps of what lies beneath are less than accurate. So come for the eleventh and the burn and the gorse, and for a man who would rather open with fifteen good greens than force three more. And if you need one more reason, the Glenmorangie Distillery is just down the road.