Category: Golf

Last weekend, I was back in St Andrews for a weekend of activities to remember my father-in-law who died at the end of last year.

I spent nearly a quarter of a century playing golf with him on visits to the home of golf and it is because of him that I got back into the game and about him that I wrote ‘Is Five Clubs Enough?’

He only ever carried five clubs in an old green bag and played a very simple but effective version of the game that seemed to be devoid of stress.

My wife, two daughters and I gathered with relatives from as far away as Canada to celebrate his life. Part of the celebration was for me, my brother-in-law and my wife’s cousin’s husband (who we decided was an honouree son-in-law for the day) to play a round of golf.

For many years following his retirement, my father-in-law’s weekly golf match was an 8am tee time on The Old Course but the course that we played together the most was The Strathtyrum.

On my last visit to St Andrews, I was taking some pictures from the roof of The Links Clubhouse when an American visitor asked me if I could explain why there seemed to be so many golf holes and if they were all on The Old Course.

He was surprised when I explained that we could see holes on three courses: The Old, The New and Jubilee and was amazed when I explained that there were three more courses just behind the driving range: The Eden, The Strathryrum and The Balgove.

He was under the impression that there was just one course in St Andrews when in fact, there are actually eight courses managed by the St Andrews Links Trust with The Castle Course and Craigtoun sitting just outside the town.

When I first started playing with my father-in-law I had not really played golf for about 15 years and the Strathtyrum (often referred to as The Strath), which was designed by Donald Steel and opened in 1993 to be a shorter (5628 yards from the back tees), perhaps easier, course was the perfect place for me to rekindle my love of the game.

As my father-in-law got older, the shorter walk and more open fairways made it ideal for us both.

The Old Course may be the bucket list course in the town – I have been lucky enough to play it once and it didn’t disappoint – but I cannot recommend the Strath enough.

The course is maintained by the same amazing team that look after all the courses in St Andrews and the tees, fairways and greens are immaculate. There are only 15 bunkers on the course, but they are cleverly placed and provide a real challenge if you happen to end up in one. The greens are large but undulating requiring proper reading and even some shorter putts are a real challenge. Stone tee markers and distances on sprinkler heads down the fairways all contribute to the experience.

For £60, as the high season price last weekend, we checked in with the friendly team in The Eden Clubhouse, were presented with scorecards and a beautiful course planner and headed out to the first tee.

I pushed my clubs on a trolley but carried my-father-in-law’s green bag of five clubs and we all played a few shots with these as we shared stories about him and the golf we had enjoyed together.

We played from the blue tees where the course is just over 5000 yards and an average par 4 might be around 300 yards with a couple of par 5s around 450. For the longer hitters reading this that might seem quite short but in addition to the bunkering and challenging greens there is one more weapon that adds to the challenge – wind.

The wind was blowing pretty hard when we played which made some of those 300 yards holes play much longer and allowed me to utter the phrase ‘two club wind’. It also presented the opportunity for some great shots with the wind behind and challenging shots as it blew across some holes.

It was one of the most enjoyable rounds of golf that I have played. The company, and memory of all the rounds with my father-in-law certainly contributed but the course was wonderful: challenging but fun.

If you want to experience golf in St Andrews, then a trip to the driving range followed by a round on the Strathtyrum might present a cost effective but memorable option.

Let’s start with a windmill. In my childhood and for my own children some form of crazy or adventure golf was the entry point to the game. My older daughter often reminds me that last time we played she got a hole in one and I did not.

In England, crazy golf has been a thing throughout my life. I had assumed that it was a British invention and, having done some research, discovered that I was partly correct.

The oldest known example of a putting challenge is the Ladies Putting club in St Andrews. Also known as the ‘Himalayas’, this opened in 1867 and can still be tackled by people of any gender today. What it lacks in windmills or dinosaurs it makes up for steep hills and wicked fast perfect greens. 

It was a recent visit to St Andrews that reminded me of the Himalayas and writing about them and adventure golf, in the ‘where to play’ chapter of ‘Is Five Clubs Enough?’

The actual theme park style golf that I recall from the seaside holidays of my youth was actually invented in America. The name Garnet Carter came up as being one of, if not the first, to create a miniature golf course with a theme and exciting obstacles to navigate.

He already owned a real course and the Fairyland Inn in Chattanooga in the state of Tennessee and apparently found players flocking to his new mini course while its full-size brother was pretty much empty. 

I should point out that my knowledge of the origins of mini golf owes a lot to the internet and an amazing article by Jesse F Gelders in Popular Science Monthly from November 1930 entitled ‘Why Midget Golf Swept Country’. A quick search on that title will allow you to read all the details yourself but the headline suggests that as the article was written there were 25,000 courses and over 1 million players. 

As someone that remembers the days before the internet, I am still excited when I discover something like this and surprise the children I teach with stories of visiting libraries and reading encyclopedias when I was a child rather than just typing a search term to find information.

Anyway, I think what I was building up to saying was that crazy or adventure golf is a place where lots of people start a golfing journey. It may be fun, but it does fundamentally allow players to experience holding a club and trying their best to aim a ball with the ultimate goal of getting it in a hole.

Though it might not be for the purist, if it gets people interested in the game, I certainly think it counts.

Finally, I did point out to my daughter that, though she did get a hole in one in our last round, I putted the ball through the hole on the challenge at the end to win a free round for the third time in a row. Perhaps decades of golf do count for something? 

I originally started playing golf as a teenager in the 1980s and I am pretty sure golf at the time wasn’t cool. Though I loved the sport it was a game played mainly by men in their 50s.

I wrote about this in ‘Is Five Clubs Enough?’ and how something amazing happened when Tiger Woods broke onto the golf scene changing many people’s perspective on what a golfer was and epitomising ‘cool’.

Both Tiger and I are now men in our fifties and when playing with a young colleague I realised that I am now one of the ‘old men’ playing golf that I remember from my youth.

My teenage daughters particularly enjoy the fact that, in the school holidays, I will turn out for the senior section of my golf club (Pastures Golf Club) and very much appreciate the golf, the company and the two course lunch. You can see Pastures in Rick Shiels (@rickshiels) videos where he and a number of tour pros have failed to beat the course record.

Last year, as a family, we were lucky enough to go and see Noah Kahan (@noahkahanmusic) in concert and he was brilliant. There is no doubt that he is cool.

I was pleasantly surprised and delighted to share that he is a golfer. Not a casual golfer but a real, plan-my-tours-around-golf-courses sort of player. He has appeared on the Fore Play Golf (@foreplaypod) channel getting a hole in one.

Riding the wave of cool I then shared, with much excitement, that Spiderman plays golf. Not strictly speaking while in his web slinging form but actor Tom Holland (@tomholland2013) is not only obsessed with the sport but also a very good golfer now married to Zendaya, making him the coolest of the cool.

Tom’s dad Dominic Holland (@dommoholland), a writer and comedian, is also keen on the sport and his book ‘Open Links’ is a great, fictionalised account of an Open Championship at Muirfield. For a person of my age the ‘voices’ of the commentary team including the wonderful Peter Alliss really bring the book to life.

I may never be cool but with golf attracting younger players and people famous in other ‘worlds’ the game is hopefully in a good place to continue to grow in the years to come.

Heading out to the golf practice ground this week and seeking some auditory company, I clicked on the latest episode of the No Laying Up (NLU) podcast.

I needed something to listen to as I continued the struggle of hitting a chip shot off what is unexpectedly hard baked ground in the UK at the moment.

I didn’t read the description. I didn’t need to. I have yet to listen to an episode that doesn’t entertain and inform.

Chris (Soly) Solomon (@csolomonnlu), and Todd (TC) Schuster (@troncarternlu) were chatting to author Jim Hartsell (@jimhartsell) in part about his new book ‘A Round of Scottish Courses’ – but also about travelling and golf in Scotland more generally.

What has inspired me to write about this particular episode (1195) is firstly how lovely it was to hear them talking with such passion and excitement about both golf and courses other than those that might appear on top 100 lists.

The episode lasted over two hours, but I could have happily listened to the same again. In a world driven by short form content, where impact must be made in seconds to ‘work’ (whatever that means), it’s refreshing to enjoy a format that allows time for a subject to be fully explored and depth of knowledge shared.

As a teacher and special education needs co-ordinator in a primary (elementary) school, I was very happy to receive an Amazon voucher from a grateful parent on breaking up this summer. I resisted just adding this to my account to use on the purchase of masking tape or ant powder or some such other useful item. I was determined to buy something nice I could associate with the child I had supported.

Having given up on the chipping practice, deciding that putting from anywhere within 50 yards was a better bet, as favoured by my father-in-law in his many decades playing golf in St Andrews (See ‘Is Five Clubs Enough?’ for more details on his simple way of approaching the game) I returned home and actually just sat in a chair and listened to the rest of the podcast.

I didn’t look at my phone (much) or watch TV. I just listened and when the podcast ended, I went on Amazon and ordered the book. It should arrive on Saturday and my next task after reading it (more long form content), will be to start looking at ferry timetables and planning a trip to explore some of the courses discussed.

To provide content that is not only entertaining but also inspires action is not easy and sometimes it takes time to deliver. I am no stranger to a bit of doom scrolling but the joy of listening to people talk with passion on any given subject will certainly keep me engaged for longer.

On a similar note, I also recently enjoyed over two and a half hours of the Australian Golf Passport podcast where hosts Scott Warren (@australiangolfpassport) and Matthew Mollica, in their 100th episode, put together their eclectic All-Australia composite courses. As with the NLU podcast, their excitement, knowledge and joy at discussing from which courses they would take each hole was infectious and had me hooked from start to finish. I did something similar with courses around the world in ‘Inspiring Augusta or Around the World in Eighteen Holes’ (two shameless plugs in one blog!). To keep engaged for the length of a Hollywood blockbuster someone on the opposite side of the world who has only seen a few of the mentioned courses, whether on TV or in photos, is again to be applauded. Perhaps more importantly, it also supports the idea of taking the time required to get a concept across.

It may just be me, but I am all for long form content when it is so enjoyable and inspirational.

This is my new website and blog. I have built it to share details of two books I have written about golf and also to share golf content that I have enjoyed. The title of ‘The Rabbit Hole’ come from a chapter in ‘Is Five Clubs Enough?’ where I share books, podcasts and video content about golf that has inspired me.