21/09/2022
Links golf makes your face glow and your heart sing.
Every year thousands of golfers make the pilgrimage to play the fantastic links courses in Ireland and Scotland.
But what is it about links golf? Why do we treasure it so much?
It’s GOT to be the unique challenge that it presents!
It’s the oldest and purest form of the game and for those of us lucky enough to have grown up and continue to play on the stunning links that adorn the Irish coastline, it’s all that we know and we are blessed for that.
But for everyone else, playing links golf can feel like a completely different game!
We all know that hitting good clean, accurate shots off flat, lush lies is difficult enough but add in the wind, bumpy terrain, bare lies and firm running ground conditions and it’s a totally different proposition.
You can’t just hit driver off every tee then float in high, spinning approach shots to receptive greens.
Oh no!
This game now demands much more imagination, creativity and a wider variety of shots.
You are on the tee and as you look out over acres of humps and hollows you may need to home in on a marker post in the distance. Commit to your 4 iron, turn back and through and trust that your wee ball carries the line of pot bunkers and doesn’t run through the fairway into the thick fescue.
Your approach shot is off a hanging lie and into the stiff breeze so you take two clubs more, three quarter swing to keep the flight down, land it ten yards short of the green and let it run up close to the hole. Two putts for a par four to finish.
Having played a whole host of bump and runs, half shots, flop shots off tight lies and putts from well short of the green its time sit down and take stock of what you just experienced.
As you loosen your golf shoes and lean back against the locker room wall your initial feeling is that you have just come through a battle. As you sit for a minute and regroup you can feel the glow in your cheeks and the sand in your hair and think to yourself “I have really earned my first beer!”
As you chat with your playing partners about how fortuitous and ridiculous your rounds have been you gradually become aware of the soul filling therapy of time spent in such awe-inspiring natural beauty. Towering dunes, breath-taking mountain backdrops and breakers rolling up the beach.
Your face glows and your heart sings!! You chuckle to yourself as you know fine well that the same course will be a completely different challenge tomorrow!!
