Story and Photos By Mike May
In sports, eating specific foods and drinking certain refreshments at various events and destinations is as much a part of the experience as getting a ticket to the game/contest or even playing in the event. For instance, when tennis enthusiasts attend The Championships at Wimbledon every summer outside London, eating strawberries and cream is big tradition. Patrons attending the Masters in April in Augusta, Georgia, make it a priority to eat pimento cheese sandwiches. Baseball fans who visit Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles make a beeline for the concession stands in order to buy and enjoy a Dodger Dog. And, of course, the winner every year of the Indianapolis 500 – aka, the Greatest Spectacle in Racing – celebrates arriving in Victory Lane by drinking a bottle of milk.
One of the unique privileges of playing golf at Scotland’s Nairn Golf Club is your access to a halfway house, which is situated between the ninth green and the tenth tee. This halfway house is called the Bothy. That’s a Scottish word which means shelter. Simply put, there are very few golf courses in the world which have a historic, on-course amenity like the Bothy at the Nairn GC.
When you enter the Bothy’s only door, you can sense its smokey warmth and you can feel its comfortable coziness. The Bothy can best be described as welcoming, homey and truly Scottish. The exterior of the Bothy is painted white and its bright white chimney can be seen in the far distance when you stand on the first tee. Truth be told, from the outside, the Bothy looks like a small country church or an old-fashioned one-room schoolhouse. The Bothy is the furthest point on the golf course from the clubhouse at Nairn.
On a day when the weather conditions are rainy, misty, damp, cool, windy, blustery, overcast, or possibly even snowy, the Bothy serves as a brief retreat from the elements for the golfers. The Bothy is perfectly situated among the gorse bushes. Here, you can warm up by standing next to the fire burning inside in the fireplace on a chilly day, grab a snack, or pick up a cup of piping hot coffee, which can be enhanced with a wee drop of Glenmorangie Scotch, which is a favorite of the locals and many overseas visitors. Some of the popular food served at the Bothy include Scotch/meat pies, Cullen skink, and stovies. Personally, I ate and enjoyed a meat pie.
The only lighting inside the Bothy comes from the natural light through the small windows and lit candles inside this structure.
Inside the Bothy, you’ll find two long, horizontal tables bordered by a series of long wooden benches. After walking nine holes, the Bothy is a welcome respite. The interior walls of the Bothy are decorated with old golf clubs, a working clock, and fishing accessories. There’s a reason for the fishing theme to the interior décor.
The roots of the Bothy date back to 1904, which is 17 years after the Nairn GC first opened. Prior to becoming a halfway house for golfers, it was a fish house which was used to prepare locally caught salmon, as the fishing industry was a major source of income for locals prior to the emergence of the country’s now globally popular golf industry. Adjacent to the Bothy is a solid-stone structure capable of withstanding stormy conditions which roll in off the Moray Firth. It’s called the Icehouse, which was used for storing the caught salmon. The Icehouse has been standing since 1877, ten years before the opening of the Narin GC. It was built into the terrain and is still covered with a turf roof.
Upon arrival at the Bothy, you can stay for as long as you want. When you return to the golf course, you just wait for a gap among the players and then continue your round.
“Our policy is that we want people to enjoy the experience of the Bothy and not feel rushed,” said Hugh Sutherland, club archivist of the Nairn Golf Club. “The Bothy is an excuse to gather and celebrate midway through your round of golf.”
When you arrive at the Bothy and the Icehouse, grab your phone and take a selfie or record a short video to send home to your friends, family, and golf buddies.
Booking a flight and arriving in Scotland for golf is one thing, but getting the chance to play the Nairn Golf Club where you can visit and experience the Bothy is a true memory maker.
