Hell Bunker

The second shot on No.14 at St Andrews is not for the faint-hearted. If you've hit a good one off the tee then you can have a stab at going for the green in two. However, a not-so-perfect drive leaves you the ultimate risk/reward shot in golf - the carry over Hell Bunker.

The pit itself is enormous. Almost the size of your average green. But size isn't the issue here, it's the tall vertical faces. If you're far enough in, then you may only be able to play backwards. But the curvature of it's shape often interferes with the path of your swing, and sometimes the only option is to chip it back to the middle of the bunker.

The local caddies are so worried about their player finding Hell that many of them actually recommend that they play down the adjoining 5th fairway. It lengthens the hole and leaves a shot of around 150 yards for the third, but it does provide the best angle for approach and more importantly takes the cavernous beast out of play completely.

To make matters worse, the 14th fairway sits on a plateau above the second half of the hole which makes the bunker disappear from sight. A golfer playing here for the first time could finish up in Hell without even knowing it was there.

From the back tee, this sandy grave will be on the minds of even the world's top golfers. Jack Nicklaus needed four blows to escape from here during the Open Championship in 1995, and finished up carding a ten. Ben Crenshaw commented, "When you're in perdition like he was, sometimes there's no way out. You can get in there and stay in there, that's why they call it hell".

Kinnettles

Some of our clients occasionally require a level of privacy that is perhaps not afforded at many of the major resorts and hotels across Scotland. Achieving this exclusivity whilst maintaining a top level of service has been difficult in past, but the facilities on offer at Kinnettles House are second to none. Situated just twenty minutes from Dundee Airport, and within comfortable reach of the courses at St Andrews and Carnoustie, this mansion house provides the ultimate base for a golfing trip to Scotland. The surrounding 66 acre estate provides the perfect countryside retreat within striking range of the country's best championship courses.

Accommodation is offered in nine contemporary-styled bedroom suites, each with super-kingsize beds and a 42' plasma screen. A host of public rooms are made available for your group including a spacious lounge with fully stocked bar, a casino room with roulette and card tables, a snooker room, and a sun lounge. A private chef and his staff will prepare meals to your specification which are served in the most magnificent dining room, and of course your on-site concierge from Connoisseur Golf will be available for any transfers that you may require. Basically this is a luxury home away from home, and we regard it as the finest exclusive occupancy venue in Scotland - perfect for a corporate golf trip.

Augusta & St Andrews

The Masters is only a few days away, and it is interesting to note the links between two of the world's most famous courses - Augusta National and The Old Course. When you watch the rolling green fairways and the array of beautiful flora on display at Augusta, it is sometimes easy to forget that a lot of the inspiration for this golfing masterpiece actually came from St Andrews.

Augusta National was the brainchild of Bobby Jones, and he dearly wanted to differentiate it from the countless other cloned golf courses that were appearing throughout America. The most notable architect of that time was Donald Ross, but Jones required someone with the vision to design a tough layout that still gave the golfer options from any point on the course - a thinking man's course. Jones had an ideal in his head of spacious fairways with severely undulating greens and cleverly placed hazards that punished poor approach shots. Ross was known for lining fairways with hundreds of bunkers, a design that suited the robotic straight hitter. But he chose Dr. Alister Mackenzie for his love of St Andrews and his ability to take the best aspects of great holes from around the world and fine-tune them to the land available.

At least five holes from The Old Course were used as inspiration in building Augusta National. Perhaps the most obvious is the the par 3 4th, which is very similar in nature to the short 11th on The Old Course. A large sloping kidney-shaped green is protected by two punishing bunkers. One short and right (relating to Strath) and one on the left (Hill bunker), where Jones famously tore up his scorecard and walked off the course in 1921. This version at Augusta plays much longer at 240 yards, but possesses all the characteristics of it's cousin back in Scotland. Every year I enjoy watching Ken Brown's (BBC Commentator) previews of the holes at Augusta. He is always of the belief that an imaginative short game is more important than raw power around this 7400 yard track. Shots such as the 'bump-and-run' with a seven iron are employed just as often here as at The Open Championship. The course plays fast and fiery, and that's exactly what Bobby Jones envisaged when he hired Mackenzie.

The fairways are large, but simply hitting them isn't good enough. Like St Andrews, being in the centre of the fairway is sometimes the worst place to be. The angle of attack is usually much easier from one side or the other, i.e. adding difficulty to your tee shot will benefit the following approach shot. Take the 9th for example - unless you are on the extreme right hand side of the fairway, you can't see the green due to the bunkering on the left apron. Being centre-cut will also leave you with a hanging lie, and a pin-point approach to a green that runs away from you. I think this is very similar to the 4th at St Andrews, probably where the blueprint of the hole originated.

So when you're drooling over the azalea's and cherry blossoms this weekend, take time to look out for ways in which Alister Mackenzie tried to make Augusta play like Bobby Jones' favourite course - St Andrews.

The Postage Stamp

It is the shortest hole in major championship golf, but what is it about the 8th hole at Royal Troon that makes it so incredibly dangerous? From the Championship tee it measures a mere 110 yards to the front edge of the green, so why does it strike fear into the world's top professional golfers?

For one, the hole has an extremely small putting surface - less than ten yards wide. It also plays into a prevailing wind, so with a middle pin position, you can find yourself gripping down the shaft on anything up to a six-iron. Add in some of the most treacherous bunkers imaginable, and hopefully you can begin to understand how it has earned it's reputation. Miss the green here and you can basically kiss your par goodbye.

The bunkers here make their famous cousin on The Road Hole at St Andrews look like a sand-filled divot. It is not only the depth and severity of slope, but also the difficult stances they often leave you in. From the two raised bunkers on the left, it is often tough to keep your ball on the green without it running off into those on the right. From this pair of bunkers, you require an almost vertical escape to clear the lip and find safety. Miss both green and bunkers, and you will find yourself attempting a Phil Mickleson special - only if you find your ball that is.

Of course you could simply hit the green, knock it in for a two, and wonder what all the fuss was about. But these stories tend to be few and far between.

Probably the most famous exponent of this particular hole was the late, great Gene Sarazen. In 1973, he aced this most famous of par 3's. Amazingly he was 71 at the time and it was exactly fifty years since he first played in the Open here back in 1923.

Whatever number you manage to rack up at the Postage Stamp, it is sure to be one of the defining moments of your golfing pilgrimage to Scotland.

62 on The Old Course

I witnessed Tiger Woods blow the field away at The Open Championship in 2000. I also thought Ernie Els was a masterful player of The Old Course in the old team version of The Dunhill Cup. But the most impressive performance I have seen in the flesh was Graeme McDowell's demolition of St Andrews during the opening round of The Dunhill Links Championship in 2004.

Every year, Jose Maria Olazabal's crisp iron play always stands out above all others on the range. But Graeme's ball-striking that Thursday morning was right up there. Unlike many players that have developed their game on a links course with a low penetrating trajectory, McDowell is just as equally blessed when it comes to delivering a high ball flight. It might not sound like a deadly weapon when the wind's up, but on a reasonably calm day with front pins, it's a pre-requisite for going low.

He got off to a smart start, taking things easy through the first four holes to be one-under. I always think these opening holes can catch you cold, and if you can perhaps pick one up on the first or third - then that's a bonus. Graeme did just that with a tidy birdie on No.3.

For a top professional like McDowell, six through twelve is like being a kid in a candy store. Birdies and even eagles are there for the taking, but you have to complement this attacking play with an equal measure of mental patience. Hitting one of the many pot bunkers at any of these holes can easily see you making a mess of a clean scorecard. But Graeme managed to avoid the sand, birdieing five, six and seven, and picked up the customary three at the ninth. In 2004, it was only playing 352 yards, so any of these guys hitting their driver relatively straight were pretty much guaranteed a birdie.

Being five-under through nine is an excellent start, but it's been done many times before. Jarmo Sandelin once turned in 27. It's the back nine here that decides your fate. Not only is it a much tougher stretch of holes but the wind tends to be into and off the right, as it was on this occasion. What impressed me most about this particular round was that it would've been simple for Graeme to sit back and coast in with a 67 and put himself in the mix. But he knew he was hitting the ball beautifully and holing out superbly from inside ten feet, so he continued to attack. He shaved the hole at ten to remain at -5, but his mindset was made apparent on the 11th. The pin was cut just four paces over Strath bunker, one of the most dangerous on the course. Behind the tee I watched Graeme line up his shot and couldn't believe to see him set up straight at the pin. It's an easy shot for a professional to hit the middle of the green here and leave a putt of thirty feet or so. It looked like a six-iron, and it set off like a bullet. One of those shots that doesn't deviate an inch. "Go...go...go was the shout from his caddie", but it was never in any doubt. It cleared the bunker and sat down a few feet from the hole. The sixth birdie of the round took him to the top of the leaderboard.

Twelve is another one of those reachable holes on The Old Course that is totally dependent on the quality of the drive. After yet another good swing, Graeme marched to seven under for the round. But this is where things got interesting. Thirteen is a tough par 4, that doesn't tend to yield too many birdies. A towering iron shot left him a relatively simple putt on the flat part of the green and the clenched fist was once again on view as he reached down to pick his ball from hole.

Fourteen, a 581 yard par 5 was a mere formality. Graeme is deceptively long off the tee, and like many of the bigger hitters he can turn these five's into four's. Long putting is of course very important at St Andrews, but look at a sample of the names on The Claret Jug when it's been played here - Nicklaus, Daly, Woods. Having length off the tee here often helps to take out some of the trouble, which many of the shorter players have to plot their way around.

I wouldn't be surprised if thoughts of 59 were running through his head at this point, but pars on 15 and 16 extinguished those dreams if they did indeed exist. However, his approach on 17 was incredible. As usual the pin was located behind the Road Hole bunker. There's a little room for error short and right, but from the fairway the green is a very thin looking target. For the amateur it's often too much to turn down, but Graeme went for this pin knowing he was in complete control of his game. A crisp seven iron, with a beautiful soft draw landed pin high and rolled left towards the hole. The guests in the hospitality tent directly behind the green finally had a reason to look away from the complimentary bar. When the putt dropped in the centre of the cup the gallery were in raptures, and McDowell walked to the 18th tee an incredible ten under par. An uphill putt from around ten feet at the last would've given him the course record outright, but it slid agonisingly past and he had to settle for a 62. "While I was out there it almost felt like blasphemy doing this at St Andrews", he later commented to the media.

After a quick start, it has taken him a couple of years to find his feet on tour, but his win at Loch Lomond and his outstanding play at the Ryder Cup have shown that he has the game to take on anyone and win anywhere. Could we see this Ulsterman picking up The Claret Jug at St Andrews this year? Who knows - he could even roll into The Auld Grey Toon wearing a green jacket...

North West Ireland

There is so much more to Ireland than the string of celebrated courses in Kerry. One area in particular that I feel always unfairly misses out on the headlines is the North West. In Mayo and Sligo, you can experience what I term 'real links golf'. Forget all these striped fairways and tee-boxes that look like they've been trimmed with a pair of hand scissors. Carne, Enniscrone and Rosses Point showcase links golf at it's best. Rugged, windswept, wholesome courses with beautifully kept greens.

Carne is a 15 year old golf course that looks as if it dates back to the 1800's. It was the final links course to be designed by the late, great Eddie Hackett, and many believe it to be his finest work. Some architects push the aesthetic boundaries too far, sacrificing the quality of the course itself. Hackett has a reputation for getting this balance just right.

He was also responsible for much of Enniscrone, although Donald Steel later reworked six of the holes. Both courses remind me a little of the fabulous front nine at Portstewart. Many of the fairways and greens are directly enclosed by an ampitheatre of sand hills and dunes. The rough is extremely penal, and like all true links links courses, the emphasis is on solid striking and straight hitting.

Perhaps the most well known of the three is County Sligo Golf Club, affectionately known as Rosses Point. It is famous in Irish golfing circles for it's hosting of The West of Ireland Championship, one of the four 'majors' on the amateur circuit. Both Harrington and McIlroy have won this title on their road to the paid ranks. In fact, throughout it's 85 year history it has consistently produced deserving winners - the sign of a great championship golf course. The club itself dates back to 1894, with Harry Colt redesigning the layout in 1927. Golf commentator Peter Alliss once remarked, "A tremendous test for the highest quality player and great fun for the modest competitor, Rosses Point stands at the very top of the list of Irish courses". The signature hole here is the par 4 17th. A testing uphill dogleg to the left that requires a tee shot to right of centre. From here, you must hit a long towering approach to a raised green, or be faced with a tricky up-and-down from their version of 'The Valley of Sin'. Possibly the best 17th hole in Ireland.

I like to offer my clients a range of high-end accommodation options when building an itinerary. For the discerning executive golfer, 'where to stay' is almost as important as 'where to play'. However, when it comes to this segment of Ireland - and Mayo in particular - I don't even bother listing an alternative to the magnificent Mount Falcon Country House Hotel & Spa. When you read through the guestbook and notice the name of a certain Tiger Woods, you know you've made the right choice. The location is ideal. Situated on the west bank of the River Moy, Mount Falcon sits nestled in a beautiful 100 acre estate close to the town of Ballina. It is the perfect base for playing the three aforementioned courses, and is also only 30mins from Knock Airport. The main part of the baronial house was commissioned in 1872 by a young Irish gentleman as a present for his bride. Recently, it has been sympathetically extended, and refurbished from top to toe. Inside, you couldn't wish for a more peaceful, charming environment. It's spacious, fresh and modern, but retains every last drop of it's rich Irish culture. The suites are enormous, and the hospitality is faultless. And did I mention the hotel has the exclusive rights to the best stretch of salmon fishing in Ireland? The K Club is a special place, as is The Merrion in Dublin, but I think Mount Falcon edges it for me. It's a heavenly retreat... and as I described above, the nearby golf isn't too bad either.

Galgorm Resort & Spa

High level accommodation has always been somewhat of a problem when it comes to building golfing itineraries in Northern Ireland. The suites at Slieve Donard located beside Royal County Down fit the bill, as do those in The Culloden and Merchant Hotels in Belfast. But until recently, staying a little closer to Royal Portrush has left many golfing tourists with a headache. I am happy to report that thanks to Galgorm Resort and Spa, this is no longer an issue.

The original Galgorm Manor was built in the early nineteenth century, and sits in over 160 acres of beautiful parkland and forest overlooking the River Maine. The recent 17 million euro refurbishment has made it one of the most attractive and comfortable country house hotels in Ireland. It is ideally situated within 40mins of the courses at Royal Portrush, Portstewart and Castlerock, and only 30mins from Belfast International Airport. It has managed to retain all the Manor's authentic Irish charm, whilst offering the spacious modern environment required by the modern golf traveller.

The most impressive addition is probably the new Spa and fitness suite. Here you can ease away your golfing aches and pains with an Infinity hydrotherapy pool, outdoor hot tub, five individual climate rooms, and 11 wet-and-dry treatment rooms. A full range of Spa treatments are available on demand.

It's also the perfect choice when considering the non-golfing members of your party. Galgorm boasts it's own equestrian centre, trout and salmon fishing, on-site clay pidgeon shooting and a series of country walks. Like Gleneagles in Scotland, it's the perfect place to relax for a few days within a busy golfing schedule.

Fine Dining is available at The River Room restaurant, or if you require something that little bit more rustic and casual you can enjoy a steak along with a creamy pint of Guinness at Gillies Bar & Grill. The latter has a fantastic vibrant atmosphere with a mixture of locals and residents at nights and weekends. It's great not having to leave your resort to find the hot-bed of local nightlife, but with the solace of having a quiet country house to return to after closing time.

Northern Ireland contains two of the top twelve courses in the world and is a golfer's paradise. With such fabulous accommodations now on offer, there is really no excuse not to visit.