Fisherrow Links Pitch and Putt Course - Course no 632

Well, it's officially early Spring in Scotland and a few nights ago I was thinking that with a bit of luck and lots of miles, I might finish playing every course in Scotland this year. I'd done 629 out of the 656 on our master list, so unless we found some more, I'd only 27 courses left, ranging from small pitch and putt courses to the Championship Course at Royal Troon.  That sense of satisfaction was a bit premature, since at 21:33 on 21 April  2014 an e-mail arrived from Graeme, one of the regular readers of my blog.  It seems that Graeme has also been doing the "all courses in Scotland challenge" and has played 525 so far.  He'd also been comparing his list of courses with those that I've done so far and had come up with another 30 or so that he suggested I might need to add in.  

If that wasn't news enough, some quick internet research revealed that most of Graeme's suggestions were either 9 hole or pitch and putt courses in far flung parts of the country e.g. Auchendean Lodge Pitch and Putt Course, in the gardens of a small Highland hotel (see www.auchendean.com).  This was certainly the mother and father of hospital passes Good luck with that one, Google's Translate app - this idiom simply means unwelcome news in these circumstances!  I'm grateful to Graeme in that with his help, at least we've identified more courses that when played, will take us closer to our final goal than we'd otherwise have been able to do on our own. I'm still researching Graeme's suggestions -and some may be wide of the mark e.g. Innellan GC members play their course backwards, but only one day a year in an end of golfing season novelty competition for club members only, so I don't think that counts. a further couple of his suggestions had actually closed some years ago, so it remains to be seen just how many more courses need to be added to the list that Craig Stu and I are tackling.

Anyway, Graeme had also suggested the pitch and putt course at Fisherrow Links in Musselburgh, only a few miles along the coast from where I live in East Lothian.  I'd heard about this course a while ago but hadn't got round to finding and playing it.  I'm playing 6 new courses in Aberdeenshire in a few days' time, but with a couple of free hours on 24 April 2014, I set off to play Fisherrow Links, a 9 hole pitch and putt course, with holes ranging from 60 to around 100 yards.  The course only opened for 2014 a couple of days previously, so I was lucky in that there were new flags, direction arrows and all of the flags and tees were numbered. The fairways were neatly cut and although the greens didn't look great, they were reasonably smooth and true running.  I'd taken my wedge, an old putter and a couple of balls and for my £1.40 green fee, I'd a quick spin around the course.  The Fisherrow course is flat and unremarkable, but is a reasonably good practice facility.  It was disappointing that I was the only golfer on the course. Either that, or others had seen the weather forecast, as the rain came pouring down a few minutes after I'd finished. Here are some random photos of the course.

The greens were reasonably quick-paced, making them tricky to hit and hold from the tees.  I've been in reasonable form of late, so 26 shots in total, with a birdie on the approximately 60 Yard 4th and a total of 12 putts wasn't too bad.  I doubt I'd want to play the course again, though.

Menzies Hotel Par 3 Course - Course no 631

Tuesday 8 April 2014 was dry and bright in East Lothian and the day seemed set fair, so I started out on a 220 mile round trip to play a couple of short 9 hole courses, in Ayr and Irvine, in Ayrshire, in the south west of the country.  Ayrshire turned out to be windy, with sunny intervals and heavy showers.  My first course was to be the 9 Hole Par 3 course at Craig Tara, a caravan park and holiday centre just south of Ayr.  I found the course easily enough but it was closed for maintenance (and drying out, if the pools of standing water were anything to go by). So, it would be 220 miles to play the 1277 Yard Par 27 course within the grounds of the Menzies Hotel, in nearby Irvine.  

The hotel is quite impressive looking inside, and doubtless attracts many golfers keen to play on the many famous links courses nearby, but the hotel's golf course is pretty underwhelming. The fairways were soaking wet and boggy in parts and needed a good cut.  The greens were full of moss and other less identifiable growing things, bumpy, slow and uninviting, with several of the flagsticks missing.  The 5 flagsticks that were still in place were old broken plastic affairs with torn and faded flags.  This course urgently needs proper maintenance and investment in some basic golf course equipment.  As it stands, it doesn't offer an inviting surrounding to what appears to be a pretty good quality hotel.  This is a view of the 1st Hole.

Were we not trying to play absolutely every course in Scotland, from the internationally famous right down to the most basic and humble, I'd not have stopped to play this Par 3 course.  For the record, I went round in 31 strokes with 14 putts, counting a maximum of 2 putts per green, given the awful state of the putting surfaces and the overgrown holes, which looked as though they'd been in service for a year or more.  At least I didn't get wet, dodging the rain that threatened for a while during my 40 minutes on the course.

Here are some other photos of this rather dismal little track.  I've played it once and I'm afraid that'll do for me.  I'll try Craig Tara later in the year, when it's drier!

Maverston GC - Course no 630

At long last, after a long hard Winter, it's back on the road again, pursuing our quest to play every golf course in Scotland.  We'd been searching the internet a while ago and came across rumours of a new course being developed in the Morayshire countryside, a few miles east of Elgin.  The original idea had been to create an exclusive development around some luxury housing, with an 18 hole course and a shorter 9 hole par 3 course, serving largely the corprorate market and residents, but nothing on the internet suggested that anything had been built.  Over the Winter, we discovered that  the recession had limited the housing side of things and led to the owner's business plan being modified to establish a members' club open to visitors, alongside some future housing.  Indeed, we discovered that the 18 hole course had been built and although there had been limited play last year, this new parkland course would formally open to the public on 1 April 2014.  See www.maverstongolf.com for further details.

Craig, Stu and were due to play the new Maverston course at 0930 hrs on 1 April.  I'd picked up a bug of some sort during my recent golfing trip to Marrakech and was still way short of my normal fitness, so I just took it easy beforehand, staying overnight in nearby Elgin.  Craig and Stu are both pretty busy work-wise so I wasn't surprised to hear they'd crammed in some play on the 31st - but 72 holes over 4 hilly courses is a bit much guys!  My intrepid buddies had played Dunkeld & Birnam, Alyth, Glenisla and Pitlochry, stayed overnight at Craig's house in Carnoustie, got up at 0400 hrs and played the equally hilly course at Rothes before meeting me at Maverston.  Little wonder if the Maverston staff thought we were not your normal golfing visitors!

But before we get into this new course, a little about golf in Marrakech.  Polly and I hadn't known what to expect, aside from some late Winter heat and a culture shock, way outside our normal comfort zone.  Marrakech itself was fascinating from start to finish, from bartering in the souks, getting away from the tourist tracks to seeing how the locals really live, seeing some of the history and culture of the place and some of the street food (barbecued sheep's head or fried lambs' brains were available, but chicken tagine with almonds and lemons was more our style).  

The golf was disappointing overall.  We played El   Maaden, Palmerie, Samannah and Amelkis.  El Maaden was pretty good.  We’d hired a buggy for the standard 400 dirhams, the course was pretty quiet and in great condition, so a good start to the golfing side of the trip.  We weren’t so keen on Palmerie.  We’d been asked to play holes 10-27, but although holes 10-18 were pretty good, the signage wasn’t the best and we struggled to avoid getting lost.  Indeed, we were pretty staggered at the mile+ gap between holes 18 and 19, so thank goodness we had a buggy.  Samannah was by far the best course we played, with fast true running greens and overall, in great condition.

And so to Amelkis.  Oh deary, deary, dear.  When we arrived there seemed to be around 50 golfers hanging about, either on the practice range, the practice putting green or in the queue at the pro shop.  When we eventually got served by a rather surly character, I was told I couldn’t play as only my wife was named on the booking form.  The fact that the form clearly stated there were 2 golfers didn’t register.  We then asked about hiring one of the 10 or so buggies parked nearby, but none of these were available.  We’d need to take a pull trolley, so we hired a couple at 100 dirhams each and got a couple of receipts to give to the caddymaster, clearly marked 50 dirhams each.  A modest little earner for our man?  Next, we asked for a couple of scorecards.  I guess I’ve played around 700 courses world-wide, but I really can’t recall ever being told that I can’t have a card and that if we still needed one after the round our man might be able to help.  We eventually got one scorecard between the 2 of us, but others weren’t so lucky and only got a sheet of paper.  Now there’s 3 loops of 9 holes at Amelkis, the red, blue and green courses.  The map on the back of the card helps if you have very good eyesight, but at least we eventually found our way to the start of the green course.  We’d been paired up with a charming French couple who were more able than us to ask for directions to our 1^st tee, but the thrill of pulling a trolley around Amelkis in 26 degree heat soon wore off, particularly when we noticed the couple behind us had somehow been able to rent a buggy, as had others behind them. We managed to complete 9 holes in around 2.5 hours before retiring to the bar. Golf in Marrakech was certainly different and at least my new putter did well enough to stay in the bag for the foreseeable future.

But back to Maverston and this is me, by the 1st tee, on a cold and overcast morning. Maverston turned out to be a good and interesting parkland course, measuring 6284 yards from the White medal tees and 6118 Yards from the Yellows, Par 70. Craig and I opted for the Whites and since the course had only opened to the public that day, I'd been winding Craig up about setting a new course record.  I needn't have bothered, since Craig was pretty knackered after 81 holes in little over 24 hours and any hopes I had of a really decent score didn't last long either. Maverston is built on rolling farmland, with trees coming into play here and there.  The fairways are generously wide and were in pretty good condition for the time of year.  We'd not been sure about how the greens would play.  They looked pretty good and were smooth running but were a lot slower than we'd expected, hence my 3 putt on the 1st, from all of 20 feet.  Indeed, we struggled to get the pace right all the way round and only some decent approach shots and some "gimmies" kept the scores down.

Scoring at Maverston was also tricky because the course is quite challenging, particularly from the back tees.  The Par 4 1st was pretty short, at only 286 Yards, but the second shot was semi-blind, uphill to a well-protected green.  A scrambled double bogey to start. Best holes on the front 9 are probably from 6-9.  The 6th is a monster 575 Yard Par 5, played to a small plateau green with a bunker greenside right that sits ready to collect anything remotely near it.  This is rightly the Stroke Index 1 hole.  OOB comes into play on the right, just to make it even more testing.  I'd mis-hit a 3 Wood 2nd shot so a bogey 6 wasn't too bad.  This is the 7th, a 174 Yard Par 3 played to another plateau green.  I'd hooked a rescue club drive wide of the green and my lob wedge found the back fringe.  Another couple of putts and another bogey.  The 8th is another Par 5, played from an elevated tee, quickly followed by a dog leg right Par 4 with yet another slightly elevated green, as shown here.

With the course being so new and Winter not that far behind us, the course was playing pretty slow generally, but by the turn we'd seen enough to suspect that once the course matures and gets quicker (including the greens) Maverston will be a really good test.

The front 9 is barely 3300 yards, but felt longer due to the various elevation changes (this is not

a flat course by any means), so we were pleased to find the 10th was a short Par 4, at only 293 Yards, as shown here.  Craig had been doing OK, but as he found out, go left off the tee at your peril, so that was the end of his bid for a great score.  Stu and I had been pretty poor on the Front 9 (I was a remarkable 8 over on the 10th tee!) so it could only get better.   I'd hit a good drive and had only a short pitch to the green, for an easy par.  A couple of decent shots on the 379 Yard Par 4 11th set up a rare birdie and steadier play on the Back 9 led to a respectable 39 gross for a total of 83, net 72, with 31 putts.  Not bad overall and an enjoyable round on Scotland's newest golf course.

We particularly liked the stretch of holes from 14-18.  This is the view from the 14th fairway on this long 434 Yard Par 4, the Stroke Index 2 hole.  A drive up the left side avoids the large fairway bunker, but you'll still have a long second shot, slightly uphill, to anothger plateau green, weel defended by 2 large bunkers, as shown here.  The green slopes from back to front so don't be short on your approach!  The 15th is another really strong hole, this time a 354 Yard Par 4 sharp dog leg right.  Your second shot will be completely blind, so you won't see the bunkering that protects the green or the proximity of whin and gorse bushes to the left of the green.  Ideally, the flagstick should be taller or the course managers should consider inserting a marker pole behind the green and as with any new course, there will doubtless be tweaks here and there as the course matures.

This is the 16th a 211 Yard Par 3.  The gulley in front of the green that hosts a couple of bunkers is far deeper than it looks from the tee, so don't be short!  The 17th is an innocent looking 359 Yard Par 4. Just go over the marker pole and you'll have a medium iron, downhill to a wickedly sloping green.  Go left, as I did, and you'll have a blind shot through mature trees, with the prospect of  a seriously high score.  I managed a bogey taking the direct route but I got lucky.  This is not the hole to hit a hook!


The last at Maverston is another fine hole, a 443 Yard undulating Par 4 a really good drive will clear the bunker to the right of the fairway, leaving an iron to the green.  If like me you finish just short of the bunker, do not top your 3 Wood into the back of the bunker, leaving yourself a 6 or 7 iron escape.  The bunker sand is currently soft and quite deep, making bunker shots quite tricky.  I hit a good 7 iron to within 30 yards of the green, followed by a lob wedge to a foot, as shown here.  This is Craig trying to get inside my 4th shot with his own 3rd.  He got his par, I got my bogey, and Stu? Well, his energy levels were gone long before we finished, as were his chances of a decent score.  I'd done not too bad, despite my Moroccan bug, but was pretty tired when we finished. We'd really enjoyed the Maverston course, a bold venture to compete with the many other well-established courses in the area.  We wish it well and it will be interesting to see the course again later this year, when we plan to return to play the little 9 hole Par 3 course that's currently under construction within the Front 9 holes of the "big" course.

With the weather remaining cold and overcast and  energy levels pretty low, you'd have thought Craig and Stu would have finished for the day, particularly with a long journey back down the road still to come.  No, they were keen to squeeze in another course, so I took them a few miles up the road to Covesea Links, the excellent short 9 hole links course just west of Lossiemouth. For them, that made it 108 holes in well under 36 hours.  Well done guys!  I was happy enough to play another new course as our epic journey continues.  Next stop for me will probably be somewhere around Aberdeen, later in the month.

Scottish golf podcast

I've been interviewed recently about the background to our golfing challenge and more generally about the diversity of golf in Scotland, for a podcast that tries to promote golf in Scotland. 

So, for anyone who wants to hear me droning on for ages about what we're up to and what I think about particular aspects of golf in Scotland, please visit www.scottishgolfpodcast.com and click on Episodes 11 and 12.  

It's been a long cold and wet Winter here in Scotland but I'm keeping busy, having been elected to serve as the new Match Secretary at my home course in North Berwick.   Caddying at Renaissance GC is also getting back into gear and in the next few days I'm off to sunny Marrakech for a week's golfing before getting back to our all-courses challenge. With any luck our first new Scottish course this year will be one that very few people will have heard of or played. Maverston GC near Elgin opens officially on 1 April and we're planning to play it at 0930 that day. Craig will have his eyes on the course record! Check out www.maverstongolf.com.

For those who have read past blog entries about what's in my golf bag, there's a replacement putter, as of today. I went to a putting clinic last night, courtesy of the teaching pro attached to our club, to find that although my putting fundamentals were pretty good, my putter wasn't ideally suited to me.  I can't remember when I bought my Ping Anser 4, but it must have been 20+ years ago.  Since then we've got on OK, with the odd falling out - sometimes my fault, I must admit!  Still, buying a new putter was a big step, not to be taken lightly, particularly since around 40% of my shots are putts.  I don't remember concerning myself with face balancing, loft and lie angles or reverse weighting etc. when me and my Anser 4 got together all those years ago. Ping was just a name to trust (and still is!) and I could just about afford the £46. Today, with the baffling pseudo-science of golf product advertising in full swing, as it were, I headed off to the pro shop at North Berwick GC, my Ping and credit card in hand.  

I'd been told that my putter was slightly too long and suspected that as a result my eyes weren't directly over the ball at address.  Alignment was good, but I could either shorten the shaft or increase the lie angle.  My old Ping has probably had enough batterings over the years without inflicting further pain via a saw or a mallet.  It deserves a more peaceful total retirement so it'll be joining the bag of old clubs in the garage, alongside my really ancient Ping Pal brass-headed putter and some other odds and sods of lesser vintage, all with only sentimental value. 

So, I wanted something with a softer face and reverse weighting sounded just the thing to add some much needed stability to my occasionally erratic putting stroke.  Step forward the Taylormade Spider Blade, surely one of the uglier putters on the market, complete with its long  and heavy fat-sized grip.  As the advertising blurb says - "Spider Blade’s head construction consists of 11 parts made of 8 materials -- 304 stainless steel, 17-4 stainless steel, aluminum, 3M Foam, tungsten, polycarbonate, Surlyn and TPU – which allowed us to take more weight out of the center of the head than with any blade we’ve ever made and ever before and  move it to the heel and toe. That’s where Spider Blade’s high MOI comes from.

Spider Blade’s head is counterbalanced with a 130-gram grip that’s twice as heavy as a typical putter grip. Counterbalancing increases the MOI of the entire club, making it 50% more stable than a traditional putter. Our Tour Staff pros who helped to develop say counterbalancing makes it easier to keep the head moving on your intended path."

  

I've no idea what TPU means nor do I know why a putter head apparently needs 11 parts made from 8 different materials, but for some reason I liked the feel of the Spider Blade and £149 seemed not too bad.  Holing 2 out of 3 from 12 feet in the pro shop was impressive and I was instantly hooked.  Lumping a bag around Renaissance from 0800hrs on Friday this week will cover most of the costs anyway, so I now have a shiny new putter for the first time in 20+ years. I'll let you know how we get on together on our trip to Marrakech and whether the Spider makes the flight home! 

A Winter Quiz

We now have 655 courses on our list, with a handful of others likely to be added that are either at the planning stages or under construction e.g GWest near Gleneagles (we'll need to work out how to get access once that private and exclusive club opens next year).  Our list of courses might eventually stretch to around 660, but  for now, it seems unlikely that I'll be playing any new courses for a while.  It's not the weather, it's just that most of the courses I've still to play are likely to be closed for the Winter or are just too far away to reach comfortably.  For example, there's around 8 mainly local authority-run pitch and putt courses in differing parts of the country that only open during the summer months.  There's also a few mainly parkland courses still to be played in the Aberdeen area but I don't fancy driving for 3 hours+ all the way up there to play courses with temporary greens and have to drive back in the dark, given the vagaries of our winter weather. So, it looks as though I'll be stuck on 627 until next Spring.  

Rather than let the blog just sit idle for that time, I thought I'd test my readers' knowledge of Scottish courses. This quiz might be nigh on impossible if you've not actually played here or read most of my earlier posts, but for my Scottish readers in particular, the challenge is to name the courses where the following 20 photos were taken.  All in Scotland, but which courses?

1 - One of the newest holes in Scotland.  I do most of my caddying work here.

2 - Definitely the remotest course in Scotland and one of the best Par 3s I've found - so far!

3 - The only 36 hole course in Scotland

 4 - One of the best closing holes in Scotland.  A remote Par 3 on the mainland (just).

5. Another old course in Fife.

6. The "clubhouse" had seen better days and the course might now be gone.

7. A 9 hole course in the Borders.

8. Another relatively new course.

9. James Braid's last course.

10.  A 54 Yard Par 3 and one of the most remote (and difficult), but where?

11. A flat parkland course in the North-East with a unique railway line running through it.

12. Next Ryder Cup venue and one of the few holes I really liked on the course.

13.  The most southerly golf club in Scotland.

14. The 19th hole on this Colin Montgomerie-designed course, just in case your

match is tied after 18!

15. A local authority-managed course.

16. Me, Craig and Stu on Polly's favourite course.  Mickelson won here this year.

17.  A really difficult Par 3 on an obscure Perthshire course.  The Inn has closed but the course is still there.

18. One of the best Par 3s in St Andrews.  Which course?

19.  Perthshire again.

20. Controversial course development.

Some of these are easy, but others are likely to perplex all but the most far-travelled of golfers. Folk who have read most of my blog postings will have seen some of the photos before. Overall, these photos reflect the diversity of golf in Scotland, so good luck in guessing the courses involved.

I'll post the answers in a few weeks' time!  In the meantime, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

ANSWERS

1 Renaissance GC - the hole that's featured is the 10th, a 417 Yard Par 4 from the very back tee.  When I caddied here in January this year, my friend George Thomson drove the green from the back tee and holed a 15 foot putt for an amazing eagle 2!

2 Fair Isle Lighthouse Keeper's Course - definitely the most remote course in Scotland!  Check out the You Tube video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VBsfPL_VKI.

3 Bruntsfield Links Pitch and Putt Course - The Meadows, Edinburgh.  Golf has been played here for over 300 years!  The Golf Tavern nearby is a "must visit" and the beer's pretty good too.

4 Durness GC This is a great little course with 9 greens and 18 tees on the far north west point of the Scottish mainland.  It's as remote as you can get on the mainland but the journey's worth the effort, as the hole featured is surely one of the best finishing holes in Scotland.  You'll have a small but critical audience, as the clubhouse windows overlook the scene and it's a given that your play will be commented on when you go in for a well-deserved refreshment!

5 Crail GC Craighead Course - another old links course, dating back to 1786 and just round the corner from St Andrews.  Polly and I thought seriously about buying an old house between the 2 courses here - we still wonder whether we should have gone ahead!

6 North Ronaldsay GC a bleak and forlorn place and sadly, the course is probably completely gone by now.

7 Selkirk GC - This is the 9th, with my car.  I didn't need to book a tee time!

8 The Earl of Mar GC - The Erskine Bridge spanning the River Clyde is the clue here.  This is a very good parkland course, well worth playing and the hotel is great too!

9 Stranraer GC - just about as far away from Durness as you can get and another gem that's well worth visiting.

10 Asta GC - a superb  hole on one of the oddest courses in Scotland.  9 holes, but the members play it backwards for 2 weeks every month, using completely different layouts and scorecards.  I've no real idea why and there was no-one there to ask when we played both courses.

11 Alford GC - in rural Aberdeenshire.  A very flat parkland course in a little village.  The train is obviously for tourists and our grandchildren would have loved it.  Mind you, Callie might have preferred golfing and she's only 6!

12 PGA Centenary Course - Gleneagles.  I hear that since we played there a couple of years ago even more has been spent re-modelling the holes and improving the drainage.  I just hope it doesn't rain during the Ryder Cup as holding such a major event there so late in our golfing season is brave to put it mildly.  Not the greatest venue they could have chosen, but money talks louder than common sense.

13 St Medan GC - quirky, with a unique safety system on  one of the holes, using old runway landing lights.  Turn them on when you're on the green, turn them off when you leave it and golfers shouldn't play when the lights are on.  Simple and very effective and overall a good little course.

14 Rowallan Castle GC - a new parkland course, already hosting minor pro events.  

15 Ayr Bellisle Golf Course - a good local authority-managed course.  The old stately home that houses the clubhouse etc has seen better days but the course itself is well worth the modest green fee.

16 Castle Stuart Golf Course - an absolute gem of a course.  Put it on your bucket list!

17 Foulford Inn Golf Course - this is a small 9 hole Par 3 course attached to an old inn tucked away on a back road in rural Perthshire.  The inn has closed but the course is still playable on a pay as you play basis.  It was in superb condition when I played it and it's well worth playing, if you can find it.

18 The Castle Golf Course - St Andrews. Opinions on this newish links course are divided, but I liked it and there are some really good holes.

19 Crieff GC Ferntower Course  - another seriously good heathland/parkland course close to Crieff Hydro Hotel in rural Perthshire.  This is one of my favourite courses, with amazing greens.

20 Trump International Links Scotland - maybe one of the best courses in Aberdeenshire, but I'd not rush back.  This is a view from the back tee on the 18th, all 651 Yards of it.

I hope the 70+ readers who tried this quiz enjoyed doing so and that I've whetted their appetite for golf in Scotland.  Use the search box top left of the blog to find individual blog reports about all of the courses I've covered.  

I'm posting these answers on 1 March 2014, the first official day of Spring and I'm on the tee in 55 minutes, so must rush!  My efforts to play every course in scotland resume in a few weeks' time, with Maverston GC a new course that opens officially on 1 April. Check out www.maverstongolf.com.  

Darley Golf Course - Course no 629

The small town of Troon lies at the heart of a fabulous strip of golfing country on the Ayrshire coast, from Irvine down to Turnberry (and I'm deliberately excluding the town of Stevenston, home to one of my least favourite Scottish courses - which I'll not name, since I don't think it's worth playing unless you're really desperate).  Troon of course is famous as the home of the excellent and formidable Open Championship course at Royal Troon GC but aside from that and the other 2 courses operated by Royal Troon GC, this little town also has three 18 Hole links courses, all owned and operated by the South Ayrshire Council i.e. Lochgreen, Fullerton and Darley.  I played Lochgreen in early 2010 (Course no 245) and the Fullerton Course in early 2011 (Course no 363).  My all-courses challenge buddies Craig and Stu managed to play all 3 on one day a while ago, their assessment being that Darley was by far the best and most difficult.  Indeed, Craig (who plays off 3 at Carnoustie, so knows what he's talking about) rated Darley as one of the most difficult courses he'd played that year so I was somewhat wary of the challenge that Darley would present to my 11 handicap game. The weather hadn't been great in the past month or so and although my caddying work has almost certainly finished for the year, I'd not played any new courses since the round over Glasgow Killermont.    

28 November 2013 was predicted to be a sunny dry, mild and almost windless day so I got up early and set off on the 103 mile drive, hoping I'd manage respectability at worst.  Darley measures 6016 Yards, Par 71 from the Yellow tees.  The normal greens were in play (soft, hairy, slow and bumpy and very different from the medium paced smooth greens that are still prevalent on my own course and other local courses on the East Lothian coast).  However, winter tees were in operation, meaning the course length was nearer to 5900 Yards - and long enough, given the lack of run on soft fairways.  I'd arrived in time to see a large group of lady members lined up ready to play a pre-Christmas competition on the Fullerton Course, complete with Santa Claus hats and reindeer antlers (is it really that time already?) and although the Darley Course was almost as busy, a more ba-humbug attitude was evident.  I'm well-used to playing behind slow players by now, but the 3 in front managed to lose their place on the course to a 4-ball in front of them, by the 5th.  The bonus of their slow play was that I soon teamed up with David, another single player (and a local member), so at least I had excellent company while waiting for the group of front to play.  

Darley is a fairly flat course and starts with a short Par 5 of only 486 Yards.  An easy opening par there and a single-putt par at the 2nd (this is a view of the 2nd green) and I was wondering what evils Darley had up its sleeve. I didn't have long to wait.  The Par 4 3rd is only 260 Yards but a deep ditch concealing a water hazard runs across the fairway,  the 3 guys in front had all been fishing around looking in vain for balls in the hazard, so I should have noticed that the shortest route across this ditch was to the right of the fairway.  Left isn't really very clever, as the carry over the ditch is quite demanding. I just about cleared the left side of the ditch but had a poor lie in heavy rough, hence my bogey 5. Caddies are supposed to be more conscious of the importance of course management, but I'm clearly out of practice already!

The 4th is a short Par 3 playing to 109 Yards from the tee, so an easy enough par there. The 5th is Stroke Index 1 and at 408 Yards, this Par 4 has the most difficult tee-shot on the course. This is the rather uninspiring view from the tee.  The carry over the gully is only 150 Yards or so, but  the bushes in front of the tee need some trimming so I was happy enough to find the fairway. I'd hit my drive up the right side of the fairway, a wise move since high bushes on the left side come into play for the second shot.  I'd hit a pretty good 3 Wood but a shocking first bounce took my ball into pine straw to the front right of the green, leaving me an awkward pitch to the flag, over a deep bunker.  I was happy enough with a 5 after clearing the bunker.  This is a view of the green from the middle of the fairway.  A good hole, though.

The 6th is a 535 Yard Par 5 and the longest on the course.  The fairway is generously wide and lightly bunkered, so there's really no excuse here.  The only real difficulty is that the green lies in a dip beyond a small hillock, meaning you won't see much of the flag.  Heavy gorse immediately behind the green will catch your eye (and anything over-hit) but this is a fairly easy hole, which I should have birdied after hitting my third to within a few feet of the hole.  Putting was just a lottery though and at least my first putt looked good in the air.

The next couple of holes are short Par 4's and reasonable birdie chances in normal conditions. I was only 10 feet or so away in 2 on the 7th and I hit a decent putt, but the green was pretty bumpy.  Still, I was only 2 over after 8 holes! This is the 9th, an awkward little 160 Yard Par 3. The green is partly hidden by gorse and a heathery bank short right.  For readers not familiar with heather, it's awful stuff.  You can see your ball and think you've a reasonable lie, but these little plants are tough as nails and making clean contact with your ball is hugely difficult.  I'd a severely downhill lie in the heathery bank short right of the green and did well to escape with a double bogey 5 to be out in 40 strokes, at 4 over par.  I'd have taken that position given Darley's reputation as a tough track, so I wasn't complaining on that score.  By this time the sun was  warming our backs and I was too hot in my long sleeve T-shirt and thermal lined trousers, but if only the 3-ball in front would speed up to a crawl!

The back 9 at Darley is slightly more tricky than the Front 9.  There's more gorse and heather to avoid and the fairways are narrower and more undulating. For example, the 10th is a straight 339 Yard Par 4, but the tee is elevated and the fairway cambers steeply to both sides so finding the fairway at all is difficult.  I'd hit a good drive up the left of centre but my ball finished in the rough to the right of the fairway on a steep upslope.  The plateau green was difficult to find from there, so I was pretty chuffed to make par after over-hitting my first putt 10 feet past the hole. The Par 4 11th is also quite tricky, at 404 Yards, slightly uphill to another plateau green. The 12th offers some respite, being a 144 Yard Par 3, again slightly uphill and with a green that's deeper than it looks.  The toughest hole on the course is the 13th, a 446 Yard Par 4.  A ditch and water hazard cuts across the fairway at about 260 Yards from the tee, but I'd no chance of reaching that off the tee.  Realistically, I'd no chance of getting on in 2, and my 3 Wood up the left side took a bad bounce into heather and was lost.  An ugly 7 at this, the Stroke Index 2 hole, was poor.  

By this time, the 3-ball in front had really slowed down, but why they thought it necessary to wait until the green had cleared before teeing off on the 14th escaped both of us. The 14th, as shown here, is all of 377 Yards and with little run on the fairway the carry necessary would have been over 370 Yards!  I'd eventually hit a good drive and an 8 iron over a water hazard to reach the green, on an upslope beyond the hazard.  My 3-putt from there was disappointing, but I'd have my "revenge" on the greens later in the round. Meanwhile, David had an awkward hanging lie in heather and his 3 Wood was more than a little ambitious, but at least his shot from there would have alerted the 3-ball in front to our presence, since it landed pretty close to the 15th tee (and 40 yards right of the target line to the 14th green).  Indeed, David's wayward shot seemed to have the desired effect and we managed to play the last 4 holes without waiting around - just as well as daylight was fast running out.

The 15th is a 335 Yard Par 4 but there's a deep gully in front of the green and anything remotely under-hit will leave you an almost blind shot of 40 yards or so, steeply uphill to the green.  I bogeyed the hole after under-hitting a short iron to the green.  In fairness, my second shot was made more tricky by the low sun.  I was 10 over par with 3 holes to go, so I needed a decent finish if I was to beat net par.  This is the 16th, a slightly downhill 140 Yard Par 3.  I mis-hit my 7 iron and was still slightly short of the green and my pitch from there ran a disappointing 10 feet past the hole.  My single putt from there was surprising since anything around that range or over was just a lottery on these greens.  The 17th is a decent 350 Yard Par 4 and again, I was slightly short.  My pitch ended 15 feet short but another fluky putt saved par.  

I needed a par at the 18th, a 464 Yard Par 5, for a net 70, one shot inside the course par of 71. I'd hit a reasonable drive up the right directly into the setting sun and into some light rough, but a poor 3 Wood from there into heavier rough was followed by a couple of equally poor pitches.  I was on the green in 4, around 20 feet away (a distance that get's longer every time I think about it!) but again, my putter came to the rescue.  I'd gone round in 81, net 70, with 31 putts.  Darley is a really stiff test and well worth a visit.  OK, it's not in the same league as the Royal Troon GC courses, but at £1 a hole for the green fee, it's a real bargain.  Play to your handicap here and you'll have played pretty well.