Lochcarron

Chapter 8 extract:  The first, a par 3, Jimmy’s Seat, is 210 yards from tee to green but 126 yards out a burn cuts across the fairway so you need to drive a minimum of 150 straight yards just to be sure of clearing the water.  And there is more: the burn arrives under the road parallel with the green and meanders along its bush lined left edge before looping round into the loch.  Finally, the green is elevated, so coming up short is not an option for a shot in regulation.  Going for the green is out of the question; my limited armoury simply doesn’t include the required golf shot.

I stood on the tee utterly perplexed.  This felt more like target practice, archery at a distance far greater than the gents’ competition maximum of 90 metres. Short of the green, seemingly beyond the burn to the right, there is an inviting light patch of turf so I lined up in that direction, determined to play the ‘sensible’ shot.  I came up too short on the edge of the pebbled burn, punched the ball onto dry land, chipped again to the green and two putted for five.  A hacker’s double bogey, ending the hole with the same ball I had started with felt like a minor triumph.  I have played this hole twice with exactly the same results; I keep doing the same thing and expecting different results – madness.

The drawing shows the view from the 7th green combined with a view from the first on the right.