No crowning glory, but Kingsbarns comes up trumps

Extract from article, Ian Wood, Scotsman Sport, 19 August 2002

Kingsbarns, that inspired stretch of golfing links-land conjured up along the coast from St Andrews by the American, Kyle Phillips, in collaboration with Mark Parsinen, has got everything it takes to make a visit thoroughly memorable. Lest this be taken for some trite tribute paid on the strength of a fleeting, shallow experience, I should, perhaps, make it clear that my second and latest visit to the course coincided with a lapse in form which took my game to depths that even I didn’t know were within my scope.

It’s probably fair to say that in less uplifting surroundings, I’d have had a bit of a nightmare. Indeed, I did have a bit of a nightmare, but such was the pleasure of playing the rolling links on a day of bracing breezes, blue skies and matching sea, the general hopelessness didn’t seem to matter as much as it should have..............

........ If I’d just been wandering around on my own, it might not have been so painful, but there were partners to be considered and it wasn’t pleasant to see them gradually change from men bright-eyed with hope and pleasurable anticipation into nervy, anxious creatures who, after half a dozen holes or so, hardly knew where to look. Actually, they had to look practically everywhere, for my ball was like a thing possessed. They did it with good grace, but you felt they were having difficulty in suppressing the odd scream.

By the time we arrived at the 15th, a staggeringly attractive par-3 of some 185 yards, flanked on the right by the sweep of a small bay and on the left, by woodland of a primitive nature, even these decent people were showing signs of strain and two of them cut their tee-shots on to the rocks (the tide was out), scattering women and small children who were rooting about for whelks and so forth.

Drawing on my years of experience and extensive knowledge of course management, I hit my tee-shot out of the heel and the ball sped due left into the primitive woodland where, presumably, it found the sanctuary it had sought for so long. There was a certain satisfaction to be derived from having avoided the rocks, women and children and losing the ball was neither here nor there for I had become sick at the sight of the thing.

There was some consolation for my companions in that they were given the opportunity to buy back their own golf balls by a young entrepreneur who apparently spends his time on the beach fielding shots which have been found wanting, then descending on his weakened prey with offers they can’t refuse.

It is not necessary to dwell on the rest of the round, in which I took little significant part........

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