Yesterday evening, I ventured out around Loch Leven to tackle one of the two nine hole courses in the county with a bunch of friends. Every year, around 10 or so husband & wife teams from the area gather for the Couples’ Classic. Nine holes of greensomes are followed by a slap up dinner. This annual event probably causes more matrimonal strife than housework and it is always a relief to be able to travel home still on speaking terms with one’s better half!
The Bishopshire Golf Course nestles on the side of the Lomond Hills between Kinnesswood and Scotlandwell, looking west over the loch. I often travel past it and wonder how anyone can play a course fit for mountain goats and which local members fondly call Cardiac Hill (with more than a little justification!). Embarrassingly, however, I probably hadn’t played the course for 40 years and so this was my chance while I was still able! When you arrive at the small car park at the base of the hill, you find a small, often unmanned clubhouse which works on the basis of an honesty box in the starter’s booth – green fees are an eye-watering £8 per round! With 20 of us in the party, the very friendly secretary was on hand, presumably to make sure that 20 green fees were stuffed into the box.
Looking at the scorecard, the Bishopshire Golf Course looks little more than a pitch & putt, measuring a mere 2230 yards off the back tees with a Par of 33 for the nine holes. That yardage gives no indication of the vertiginous ascents and descents that playing the course necessitates. Seen from above, the course layout looks as follows:
As we gathered beside the clubhouse to haggle over handicaps, agree on the format of the competition which couple ought to play with which in order to minimise the potential for marital strife, nervous glances were made up the hill to where the first green nestles like an eagle’s eyre! Having earlier made a rash commitment to carry my far-too-large golf bag around the course (because we were only playing 9 holes), I felt that even Fanny Sunnesson might have opted for trolley. No buggies here – a cable car though might be an option!
The only plus point about the 1st hole is that the tee is hidden from sight from the clubhouse by a tall hedge and therefore you can take your opening tee shot with a welcome degree of privacy. Only our playing partners should have witnessed my wife’s air shot. However, a lady from Kinnesswood in Bloom was busily weeding the flowerbed at the back of the tee only feet away! I smacked my tee shot up the hill into a patch of rough, my wife hit our ball into a small copse of trees, I left it in the copse of trees……………… By the time we reached the 1st green, we were barely on speaking terms.
The second hole is a 157 yard par 3 which is in theory reachable but again requires hitting your drive almost vertically up the hill. By the time we putted out, lungs were gasping for oxygen and self-preservation had taken over from self-recrimination. The third hole is a dinky little 94 yard flip with a wedge onto a green way below. It was the nearest the pin hole but not one of us put our ball on the green off the tee! My own personal attempt at glory saw my ball hit a rock in a small ditch just 6 feet to the left of the pin and then ricochet 80 yards down the hill.
Finally, on the 4th, we had a downhill hole, but any enjoyment from booming a drive out into the distance was dissapated by the thought that we were going to have to play back up again at least two more times. Sure enough, the 5th hole was straight back up the hill again to yet another tiny green which required the accuracy of a laser guidance system to hit! The 6th turned out to be a blind par 3 (174 yards) diagonally up the hill over a large hump.
And then we came to the 7th tee and you suddenly realise what a great little course this is. True its layout is quirky, the condition of the greens falls some way short of Augusta and the climbs leave you short of breath with lactic acid burn in your thighs, but this is exactly what a golf course in a small Scottish community should be like and it reminded me of some of those lovely courses on the west coast. None, however, as far as I can recall has the sort of view that greeted us as we clambered up onto the 7th tee. The unrestricted view, west out over Loch Leven, over our Kinross courses on the otherside and beyond as far as Stirling and the Wallace Monument, is simply stunning particularly with the setting sun. It does not matter how bad one’s golf has been up until then, this view alone makes it all worthwhile. As we stood there, two gliders from the nearby Scottish Gliding Centre and three paragliders circled above us on the thermals caused by the face of the hill. [Stupidly I did not have my camera with me but went back today in sadly cloudy conditions to give a taste of what we could see but inevitably it does not do it justice].
Longest drive hole – how could anyone not feel inspired standing on that tee? Despite having played like a complete numpty all round, I hoiked the ‘big bat’ came straight out of the bag, gave it a couple of swishes and then launched a drive into orbit that even John Daly would have been proud of (in my dreams!).Others were all to try their luck to outdo it but, as it later transpired, all were to find themselves ‘weighed in the balance and found wanting’! The prize that every testosterone-filled male golf hankers over turned out to be our one success of the evening. The final two holes passed in a blur.
From there it was off to the nearby Balgeddie Toll for the post Couples’ Classic knees up. Scores were totted up, winners announced and prizes handed out as we knocked back pints of the aptly named Bitter & Twisted and sat down for supper – all in all, a great evening.
If you are ever looking for a change from the normal links and parkland courses and feel up to the physical challenge of a very scenic heathland course, I can heartily recommend the Bishopshire Golf Course for a bit of fun.
For the record, the winners of the 2010 Kinross-shire Couples Classic were our playing partners, Henry & Amanda Barge who carded a ludicrous net 28 for the 9 holes (who dreamt up their handicaps?), relegating Andrew & Deborah Rettie to the runner-up position. And, for what it’s worth, my wife and I did not come last and are back talking again!
Kinross Golf Courses Blog 