The Great Machrie

The Great Machrie.....

The Machrie.  Mmmm. Savour those two words. T...h...e...M..a..c..h...r...i..e...

Swirl them around your mouth. Get the taste. This is full flavour golf, bought to you from the Isle of Islay, one of the most chilled out places in the UK, which is also drenched in the fine art of Whisky making.

Golf + whisky? Could it work? I think so.

This is a proper walk on the wild side – a journey into a golfing nirvana, with a cast of lovely people, who are so; agreeable, pleasant, share the time of day with you, calm, relaxed, charming, wave at you from their car, hospitable, and without side- that it takes you time to get it. I was way too Londoned-up for the place, and it was more than a day or two to before I even start to get on their wavelength. Maybe there is a dark side, but if it’s there I missed it.

 I was wandering around the Laphroaig  distillery, when I wasn’t playing golf, and chatted with one of the guys who ran the ‘Maltings’– he looks after the whisky, and then nips out to do a bit of lobster fishing. Now that works for me.  He’s also travelled around India – so any idea that this is some insular, hate incomers, environment is completely dispelled.  These are great people, with an amazing golf course in their midst, or rather at the edge – it is links after all.

The Machrie is a golf wonderland. The setting is sublime – a seven mile sandy beach, with the course deeply set into the dunes behind it. If you don’t like this you have no soul. Simple as. So go, go, go, now, tomorrow, just as soon as you can.

At 6250 yards off the whites, it’s not long, but who cares about length when you’ve got a serious links course to contend with? 6250 yards of The Machrie is more than enough for me, and it has to be walked – you’d need shooting if you wanted to cart this baby, and you’d have to be one hell of a cart driver as well.

I have to say that this fetish for length is totally irrelevant, unless you are Paul Casey. I hate it when great courses like this start to get almost apologetic about their perceived lack of length. There’s no need for any golfing Viagra – it’s all here already.

And as for the course itself, it’s links as I love it. Fast running, undulating fairways – of course - and a great variety of green placements – some raised; some sunken into great sand-duned punch bowls. Because of the challenging terrain, there’s no real need for other defences, so there’s little in the way of bunkering. And that’s before I even mention the wind, which can add a whole new dimension of difficulty.

Some complain about the number of blind shots, but that’s a part of what gets me going -knocking one out into the unknown, but with the hope that there’s a safe place to be found, which is sometimes the case.

I also have to say hats off to Simon Freeman, the Head Green keeper. We bumped into him on the 10^th, and he is one of the most committed and engaging people I’ve met in golf. He’s totally on top of this place, even thought he doesn’t have an army of staff to help him keep the place in shape.

Right, I need to calm down and maybe have a quick Laphroaig, or maybe a Lagavulin, or an Ardbeg, or a Caol Ila, or a Bunnahabhain, or a Bruichladdich.

‘This is not a love song’ sang Mr J. Rotten, back in 1983 - well, I’m not sorry to say, this is. And I'm longing to get back up here for Show Me The Golf, and shoot some proper golf video of this place so everyone can see what it's about.

JohnD