How to describe Askernish, the once “lost” course out on South Uist in the Outer Hebrides? It is not the grandest course or anywhere close to the most challenging of courses. There are a good many courses—in the Highlands alone—that are more beautiful. There is, however an otherworldliness to it. When you play it, it is as though you have ripped away a curtain and stepped into the 1890s.
This is not a dainty gentrified course with ever so neat sand traps and tightly delineated greens. Set next to Askernish, Brora, another primitive but spectacular course, Brora is a nice, elderly, gentlemanly, slightly rough around the edges, course.1 Askernish, in raw contrast, is a brawling, no-holds-barred, course, right out of the days when British gunboats sailed into foreign harbors and seized the local grand poohbahs and subjugated the people. The brush and the dunes, the animals and birds, gather on all sides of you as you walk the course, definitely unmanicured, definitely untamed.
Take #11 as an example.
For men, the par-3 11th hole is 190 yards of carry, all carry. No fancy bubbling fountains, spelling out the name of the golf course, are down in that gully. It is all brush and thick grass, probably growing off the fertilizer of the bodies of golfers who decided to go looking for their balls there.
Trying to figure out that 190-yard hole carry to a green hacked out of a petrified dune, standing above the waves rolling in on the beach directly below me, while bracing myself against a 3-club wind, a Mohammed Ali quote about fighting Joe Frazier that third time popped into my head:
"I heard somethin' once. When somebody asked a marathon runner what goes through his mind in the last mile or two, he said that you ask yourself, 'Why am I doin' this?' You get so tired. It takes so much out of you mentally. It changes you. It makes you go a little insane. I was thinkin' that at the end. Why am I doin' this? What am I doin' in here against this beast of a man? It's so painful. I must be crazy.”
Ali’s quote fit. What the hell am I doing here, I thought. I could be in the US playing some nice parkland course, buying a drink from a comely lass on the beverage cart, and riding placidly from shot-to-shot, a MacDonald’s down the street, an Applebee’s in the next block. Instead, here I was trudging up and down dunes, plunging through gorse, the most golfer-unfriendly plant in the world, on a remote island which even its inhabitants flee. By the standards of the medieval Celtic monks who loved to find remote and inaccessible places to live and, in time, die, the plateau of the eleventh tee is isolated. Looking around, I thought: “There’s not a damned soul but me anywhere on the whole course.” The more I had twisted through the flowers and dunes and bushes and past the many hare holes, the harder it had become to even find the paths between holes. I would top a dune, look at the Atlantic with its gray waves and realize that the next stop was Labrador in Canada and try to figure out where I should go next. Balls disappear forever the moment they touch anything but the fairway. Despite being in the best shape a man in his late sixties could be in, I was beginning to think—“I must be crazy.” After I played my tee shot on #11, it took me a while to find the path down to the beach and back up. Had Obi Wan-Kenobi tapped me on the shoulder and offered advice on how to play eleven, I would not have been surprised.
I had always wondered what Scots meant when they said they had played in a “three-club wind.” Standing on the tee of Askernish #12, I found out. Trying to videotape what was going on around me I made a discovery—if there’s enough wind, speaking into the microphone on your phone becomes a sometimes thing. In the space of about an inch, hurtling winds can knock words out of the air. Clean out of the air. Watch:
But Askernish, which might be considered golf at its most pure, is not just a golf course, it is, like the war memorials2 that dot the Scottish landscape, a tossing aside of a century or more of time.
It was designed by Old Tom Morris.3 Tom Morris was not just one of the great old architects, he is the person who turned golf architecture into a profession. Old Tom, upon traveling to the Outer Hebrides in the 1890s, had declared that he had never seen so many places where links courses could be set-up.
The machair (the local well-fertilized soil) and the dunes, being soaked repeatedly by storms on “sunny days” when storms race across South Uist instead of hunkering down and simply blasting the place with seemingly endless winds and rains, were absolutely lush. And “stuff” grows everywhere; I had trouble even locating the tee-box on number 2. The holes were thin slices of grass hacked through brush. There are parts of Askernish, particularly around the turn, where a claustrophobic might just feel a bit uneasy as the course’s fairways narrow and brush closes in.
Almost all those who have played Askernish say that the course really begins on number 7. That works for me, the hole has a great deal more bramble than fairway and the fairway itself is as wide as a soda straw. The scorecard says it is under 500 yards long. Maybe. If you are Rory McIlroy or Bruce Koepka or Bryson DeChambeau. But if you are the average golfer who can still bang ‘em, here’s a piece of advice . . . DON’T. DON’T begin to play it like a 500-yard hole. Take out your 3-wood and hit it short of 250. From about 240 to near 300, you have nothing but garbage. Garbage On a Narrow Fairway—hell of a sandwich. Then punch your next shot down the left side. Full swings on seven, unless your last name is Woods or Nicklaus, are insane.
The eighth is a sleight-of-hand. It’s short (250-260 from the men’s tees) and looks takable. But the green is guarded by a small mound and traps. You can go down the left and try to fade it in, but then you have to squeeze the ball in between the mound and the traps. You can try to draw it in, but if your draw doesn’t draw enough, you will never see your ball again. And, if it draws too much, you are all but certain to be bunkered. Drive it through the green and the ball just disappears. Go a little bit short and your ball will act like it was in a pinball machine. I was lucky, I can no longer hit the ball far enough to even make the attempt, but still had to try to dump the ball over that mound with a pitching wedge . . . and just caught the mound and watched my second shot kick left and barely miss the bunkers. Number eight is basically a hole of nerves; almost anyone can get it there in two . . . but you either hit it in pure or you get to put a big number on your card. The ninth, and tenth holes are similar to seven, though not quite as punishing, but then you come to the aforementioned eleventh.
Twelve may be a true Old Tom hole. If so, he designed one of the most beautiful holes I have ever seen. It twists off the top of a dune, swings down a stretch of land that is trying to become a gully, and then finally eases off to a nice piece of reasonably flat land . . . all in a showcase of yellow and purple flowers. There is a second fairway off to the left, which offers an easy track to the green, though if you miss that fairway, you will be in some very bad places indeed. I chose the fairway more traveled.
All in all, #12 is just stunning. You will, I guarantee you, never see a hole like this in the States. Or anywhere else, I suspect. After sixty years of golfing, I had finally found a hole that no one could duplicate in a different location, regardless of the money spent to do so.
Thirteen was easier than it looked, a fine boomerang of a dogleg taking you back up through the fields of yellow and purple flowers. I overplayed it and sent my drive through the elbow. It is, supposedly, the final resting place of Benji, the now passed club dog. If so, they picked a fine place to bury him—a place where the flowers will probably grow forever.
Behind it is the fourteenth—another plateau to plateau shot over a gully . . . and into the wind. On eleven I hit a fine 200-yard driver over a gully. Here I absolutely crushed a driver . . . into the wind . . . which did not make 145 yards. I could not believe it. I went up that second plateau like a hound-dog dogging a quail, Benji running beside me, absolutely convinced that I had to have made it over the gully in front of me. Had to have made it! Walking right on the edge of the brush, right in front of the green . . . fought the vegetation trying to pull me back into the gully . . . and . . . no ball. No nothing. Said “what the hell” and dropped a ball in front of the green. I had no club in my bag that could carry that gully. Besides which, as a researcher I might be able to deduct that drive off my taxes.
Fifteen, a broad landing area, a thin neck. But really, hit your ball right and come back left. You may want to lay up, going too far right to the left will remind you that balls bounce hard on linksland—and, also, you can tap the ball on fairly easily from the front.
Sixteen. The Devil’s Own (my name for it). The club has named it “Old Tom’s Pulpit.” One of the best holes I have ever played. There may, in fact, be no right way to play it. Dogleg right. Broad landing area—about 160 to 200 yards out for the men. The fairway then narrows to almost a trace. It broadens again (actually, it joins the 9th fairway briefly right where the hole turns to the right) about 260 from the men’s tees. If you are confident at 260-280, try for it. Otherwise, lay up at the 160-200 landing area, then choose between hitting a wedge about 100 yards into that dogleg, giving you a fairly safe shot to the green or, for your second shot, you can go straight for the green over a sea of brush. The shot over the brush is a perfectly makable shot of about 130 yards. . . I went for it. Now . . . I had noticed that there was a small mound very slightly to the left. You can hit a near perfect shot and watch it catch that little hill and go off the back of the green. It took me three shots to finally clamber back on to the green (did I mention it was elevated?). Your call, but if you are in the dogleg part of the dogleg, that mound works for you.
Seventeen is a rather simple par three. When I saw it, I thought: “there is a God.” After the intricacies of the 7-16 stretch, golfers can tell themselves they deserve to play something simple. Just make certain to get to the green and, oddly enough, all will be well.
Eighteen. A par five. Slainte Mhath. A fair dram for you upon finishing. The hole is not difficult, though you can make it so if you get greedy. Take a kindly old gentleman’s advice, friends, shoot for the landing area to your right, and then pop a short iron into the dogleg from the right. You will have a friendly reception for your third shot since the terrain will bend your ball toward the hole . . . you want your third shot to be low and running. You can go for the green in two, I have talked to players who have tried it, but it is a high risk shot if ever there was one.
Strolling off the green, I stopped at the little clubhouse. Had a bacon roll and tea. Drove out to the main road. Looked both ways. Not a car in sight—which fit. I had just played a remarkable course that has to be a one-of-a-kind in this world at least . . . and I was alone out in the Uists. Turned right and headed for the ferry at the Island of Eriskey to go to Island of Barra.
That wind is unreal! What an amazing description of the course, even for a non golfer like me. Makes me want to go there!