The Highlands hit a golfing hat-trick after three of the regions most prestigious courses were named among the 40 best in Britain and Ireland.
Royal Dornoch Golf Club cracked the top 10 in the list compiled by Golf World magazine,, being placed ninth best, Castle Stuart Golf Links near Inverness ranked 31st while Nairn Golf Club was placed 26th.
The Dornoch championship course is famously a favourite of golf legends such as Tom Watson and Greg Norman and is often described as the best links course in the UK not to have hosted The Open Championship.
General manager Neil Hampton said: “It’s always fantastic to be recognised like this.
“We have put a lot of effort into developing the course and constantly improving what we can deliver.
“We’re delighted to have been included on the list alongside Nairn and Castle Stuart who we have worked closely with over the past few years.
“It just goes to show the quality of gold that is on offer in the Highlands.”
All three courses are part of the Highland Golf Links (HGL) partnership, which promotes golf holidays in the north.
Fraser Cromarty, chairman of HGL and CEO at The Nairn Golf Club, said: “Having three courses inside the top 40 of Golf World’s list is fantastic news for the Highlands.
“The fact that these courses are accessible for visitors and can be played over the course of a weekend makes golfing breaks in this part of the world easy to manage and very rewarding.”
As well as appealing to visitors, the golf courses attract their fair share of top competition.
The Nairn Golf Club hosted the Walker Cup in 1999 and the Curtis Cup in 2012. It will also be home to the Home Internationals competition in August 2016.
Castle Stuart Golf Links, which opened just five years ago, hosted the Scottish Open for three successive years from 2011, with the 2013 competition, won by Phil Mickelson, reaching a television audience of more than 500million people.
The three courses will also host the 54-hole Tomatin Single Malt Homecoming Pro-Am which will be held from September 30 to October 2, just a few days after this year’s Ryder Cup.
Former Ryder Cup captain Bernard Gallacher will lead a field of nearly 300 golfers taking part in the 2014 event.