Royal Dornoch Winter Newsletter 2024

This has been reinforced by the Ladies section also
adopting it as its chosen charity. Unfortunately, it’s
CEO, Fiona Heinonen, has missed both
opportunities to come to Royal Dornoch, once
through family misfortune and once because our
appalling weather made the trip from
Oldmeldrum to Dornoch impossible. We are
hoping she can finally manage to come to the
Captain’s Weekend in May.
Our links to the community through our charity
and outreach activities have never been stronger. I
opened the multi-use games area at Dornoch
Academy, funded by Royal Dornoch, earlier this
year. I am told that it is extremely popular – I was
tempted to join in a five-a-side game but luckily
wisdom prevailed. We also won the Crown Estate
Prize for Outstanding Supporter of Coastal
Communities at the SCDI Business Excellence
Award Dinner in Inverness in September –
illustrating how uniquely Royal Dornoch is
embedded within the local community.
Also running alongside the golf activity has been
the clubhouse saga. The amount of work that some
of our members have put into this project has
simply been astounding. Mike Ross has taken most
of the technical weight, ably assisted by Gordon
Davies. Rob Murray has put a huge effort into the
general wheeling and dealing, with help from
Willie Mackay and Jim Campbell, who also has
made significant contributions to the
environmental efficiency of the building. Neil, of
course, has done a sterling job in liaising with the
multitude of parties who have to be kept in the
loop throughout the project so that it runs
smoothly, both in a physical and financial sense.
first turf on 20th December. My digging was fairly
restrained because I wasn’t sure how strong the
“silver” spade was. But I did manage to dig up a
golf ball, unfortunately not an antique.
As you will see from the Finance Report, our
income has already significantly exceeded
expectations for 2023. Martin Lynch and I have
been working on fine tuning our five-year forecasts
so that we are as well informed as possible about
the potential timetable for making the
developments that will allow us to realise our longterm
vision.
Setting aside these somewhat mundane issues, I
would like to finally share my view about what
makes Royal Dornoch such a great golf club, aside
from having one of the great links courses
anywhere in the world. Royal Dornoch also has no
equal among other world class golf clubs in the way
it mixes its own members, whether they be local,
from other parts of the UK or from overseas, with
visitors from all over the world. On the course and
in the clubhouse, we are all just golfers with no airs
or graces. Royal Dornoch is unique.
David Bell
Captain
Morrison’s took over the site on 4th December
and work is scheduled to take 76 weeks. We cut the
7