Page 103 - Golf World (February 2020)

Travel
‘The course constantly asks you to create a shot that
works for the unique set of conditions in front of you’
While the coast is constantly visible throughout the
front nine, the holes do not rub against it. Indeed, at
times there is enough duneland between the holes and
the beach for two or three more fairway corridors. Why
Old Tom didn’t choose to structure his course through
this area we will never know, but we should be grateful;
it has safeguarded the course from the perils of erosion.
Cutting east, the 9th finally takes us inland. But while
the holes from hereon in offer more in the way of inland,
downland backdrops, you are still in dune country and
the fascinating landforms do not relent. Indeed, as the
round continues, it starts to hit home how the joy of this
course is found in its rugged, natural contours. Rather
like Portrush, just 40 or so miles distant across the Irish
Sea, Machrihanish is only sparsely bunkered, the job of
defence left to the rough and the formidable swales that
characterise its fairways and greens. The questions the
course poses are consequently complex: a 5-iron with the
ball 12 inches below your feet and the wind hard off the
left; a pitch to a perched green downwind with the pin
cut at the front; a bunker shot that demands height to
escape the lip, even though you need to chase the ball up
a step. The fact you can’t always find an answer in no way
detracts from the pleasure of trying.
“Ultimately you need to play a ground game here,” The par-4 3rd
insists head professional Jennie Dunn. “Getting the ball hole, ‘Islay’,
where the
all the way to the back of the very long green on the 3rd, courses
mastering the false fronts on greens like the 13th, which landscape
rises before falling away from you… the course is moves from
downland into
constantly making you think how to create a shot that the duneland.
works for the unique set of conditions in front of you.
And with the wind constantly changing, yesterday’s
solution won’t work today.”
The course continues to set its Enigma-machine
riddles into the back nine, potential birdie opportunities
masterfully mingling with tough pars. Two marvellous
par 5s at the 10th and 12th present chances for progress,
though the terrific 437-yard 14th and 230-yard 16th will
doubtless balance the leger.
It is the par-4 17th, though, that pulls you finally out
of the dunes, back across the burn and into the course’s
flat finale. After such an intense delivery of natural curls
and swirls, the straight line of white OB markers hard to
the fairway’s left is both a shock and a smack, and it’s a
feeling that makes it tough to appreciate a final pair of
holes that, on any other course, would be considered
solid enough. That said, a rather bland close is a small
price to pay for a course that supplies a rare blend of
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