I have played golf in wind before. I had never played a course where somebody had gone out before us and strapped the flags to the pins so they would not blow away. That decided the day. The greens played slow — not badly kept, but nothing was going to run true into that. We were aiming thirty metres off line on approach shots and hoping. Putts that should have been quick were being knocked at. By the fourth hole nobody in the group was talking about their score any more

Let me get straight to my conclusion. After playing both courses at Cabot Highlands on the same day in the first week of September 2025, Old Petty in the morning and Castle Stuart in the afternoon, my honest verdict is that Castle Stuart is the better course. By a clear margin. Old Petty is excellent and Tom Doak has built something that will rise up the rankings as it matures, and I covered all of that in a separate post.