Nairn Dunbar will host the Northern Open this week, from today until Thursday, the Tartan Tour event’s first visit to the course since 1999.
Since leaving Meldrum House, where it was staged for four consecutive years, the historic tournament has returned to traditional links courses such as Murcar Links, Cruden Bay, Royal Dornoch and, last year, in near monsoon conditions, Lossiemouth’s Moray Old Course.
Greig Hutcheon, of the Paul Lawrie Golf Centre, would love to make it a hat-trick of triumphs, having previously lifted the trophy at Meldrum House in 2010 and Royal Dornoch in 2016.
Hutcheon, sitting second in the Tartan Tour’s order of merit, just behind last year’s Northern Open champion, Paul O’Hara, said: “I’ve been enjoying the great weather and getting out to play golf again, it’s been great.
“Nairn Dunbar is a good golf course, and I think they made some changes a few years ago to improve the course. I played it a couple of months ago, I was up for a bounce game to have a look at it again, and enjoyed it so I’m looking forward to this week.
“The golf course was in really good condition then so I would imagine now it will be absolutely superb. It’s just a nice place to play golf, it should be fantastic, although I would the course is pretty dry up there at the moment, so it might be quite links-like, although it’s not directly on the coast it certainly feels like a links golf course.
“Richard Johnstone, the course manager at Nairn Dunbar, is going over to France as one of only two Scottish greenkeepers at the Ryder Cup, so I’m sure he and his team will have the course in tip-top condition for this week.”
Hutcheon confirmed that once again he will be sharing accommodation with his old friend, the 1996 Northern Open champion, Scott Henderson, of the Kings Links Golf Centre in Aberdeen, when he added: “Scotty and myself will be staying in my wife’s auntie’s caravan in Findhorn, about 10 miles from Nairn, so hopefully it’s barbecue weather.
“My own game has been pretty solid this year, with not playing at Wentworth last week I’ve not played so much golf, but since the weather has got better I’ve been on the course a fair bit.”