The new 18 at Cabot Highlands is rich with Scottish fun and eccentricity
In 2022, The Cabot Collection extended its global reach by acquiring the highly regarded Castle Stuart Golf Links, a 2009 Gil Hanse and Mark Parsinen design in the Scottish Highlands, with intentions for expansion. Three years later, the rebranded Cabot Highlands property is ready to unveil its new Tom Doak-designed 18-hole course, Old Petty, which will welcome preview play from August 1 to September 30 before a proper opening in spring 2026.
Along with lead associate Clyde Johnson, Doak created Old Petty on former farmland, forcing golfers to flirt with the 400-year-old castle and the Old Petty Church, built in 1839; mingle with a tidal estuary; and rise and fall across an expansive, rumpled hillside where holes will feel found instead of formed.
Inevitably, the conversation around the course starts at its bookends, with the 1st and 18th sharing a crisscrossing fairway (a feature not new to Scotland). The dueling par fours occupy the property’s former driving range, with each having to contend with a centerline ridge that influences both holes’ ideal path and lessens some of the danger that might arise from oncoming groups.
The 7,075-yard, par-71 routing smartly makes use of existing structures across the site—like the bothy (simple shelter) bordering the green at the 430-yard par-four 5th; the beached fishing boat that acts as the tee-shot target for the 600-yard par-five 15th along the Moray Firth; and Castle Stuart itself, which juts in on the left side of the 230-yard par-three 3rd while being in view on 13 of Old Petty’s holes. “Castle Stuart is a frequent landmark,” says Doak, “from your first peek at the turrets on the 2nd hole to its uncomfortable proximity at the 3rd, to providing the line for the blind approach at the par-five 8th.”
Old Petty’s driving range will also moonlight as an 11-hole “pitch-and-putt” course in the late afternoons and evenings. Its holes, ranging from 50 to 120 yards, will feature greens “inspired by mostly lesser-known, but some more well-known, bunkerless greens from around Scotland,” according to Johnson.
