Golf a wonderful game, giving you a great day out in lovely countryside, and a tussle with nature and your opponent. And you can play it almost anywhere in the world! Why not take a golfing vacation soon and explore some new and challenging courses?
If you do not play golf you might ask what's so great about golf. You might even think golf would spoil a vacation. Not a bit of it! Golf vacations are huge fun.
Golf provides pleasure on so many levels, whether playing on your home course or on a golf vacation. You get:
The challenge of the course;
The test of co-ordinating your mind and muscles, even when the pressure is on;
The pleasure of the company of friends;
and the beauty of the countryside you are playing in - even if it is surrounded by tall buildings, a golf course can be beautiful.
You'll see straight away that I don't agree with Mark Twain that golf spoiled a good walk - great writer, but he lacked imagination when it came to golf. Obviously, he never went on a golf vacation!
Golf vacations in many countries
We all enjoy playing on our regular course, but it is also very exciting and enjoyable to play on new courses in fine resort areas. Take a golf vacation somewhere interesting - could be in the USA, Canada, Ireland, England, Scotland, Australia or many other countries - and you will have a lot of fun.
Of course, most vacations are fun, but golf vacations combined the best - a relaxing vacation and great games with your friends.
Scotland is a great place for golf vacations
So whom do we need to thank for this great game of golf, now played almost all over the world, including in the desert? No one knows for sure, but we do know that the game was well enough established for Mary Queen of Scots to have played golf - quite often, it seems - on the Links around Edinburgh in the 1560s.
The Scots have enjoyed golf for many, many years, although they have so many fine courses they don't need a golf vacation to enjoy new courses.
There are many courses near Edinburgh that are great for a golf vacation: Dunbar, Gullane (three courses), Longniddry, Luffness New, North Berwick, and Muirfield to name just a few.
You can play golf on any piece of land that is big enough for 18 holes, or even 9 holes. It can be as flat as a pancake or up and down - you can still enjoy your game. But the best golf courses has slopes and curves, but not steep hills. And they are difficult - a challenge to the golfer.
You will find plenty of interesting courses for your golf vacation inland, on heathland, or links - the land that links the beach the fertile land. Links were used for golf because they were no use for anything else - and now many are popular for golf vacations.
We all stand on the first tee and look down towards the green, take in the green fairway, maybe a few trees, or the distant sea, and prepare for another game. Often, on a golf vacation you will wonder how you will ever hit the fairway and then keep out of the rough!
Even so, we hope that today, we will score better. No one says it standing on the tee, but everyone hopes so. This is golf: a microcosm of golf, we start off with hope, just as we do each we get out of bed.
One of the good things about golf vacations is that you play every day, and get better as the week goes on.
Often we don't play well, but ...
Mostly, we get down the first fairway well enough - even on a golf vacation - and maybe play the first hole well. But somewhere out there, the course will suddenly jump up, grab your ball and hide it in a bush or a pond, or it will blow it over a fence so you are out of bounds. Or just as you are putting, the hole will mysteriously move aside a couple of inches so your ball goes past! Well, that is what it seems like sometimes, especially on a strange course that you might find on a golf vacation.
Sometimes we play very well
On other days, you can play really well. You are like a king, majestically travelling past all the dangers and you just hit the ball into the middle of the fairway, into the middle of the green, and into the middle of the hole.
"Easy, this game of golf", someone might remark, but you remember the last game when it was so hard. This might happen one day on your golf vacation, but not the next. Golf humbles us, even on vacation.
Golf is about enjoying the countryside, it is about learning to co-ordinate your muscles,and enjoying that mastery - and you can have mastery at many different levels. Then, there are two or maybe the games in one. A lot of the time you want to hit the ball a long way, such as when you are driving off the tee, or when playing a long shot from the fairway.
But then, you need a delicate touch to hit the ball from 50-100 yards from the green. Finally, you need the ability to 'read' the slopes of the green, and hit the ball with precision of length and accuracy of line to get it into the hole. When you can do that well over 18 holes every time you play golf, "Well, you're a better man than me Gunga Din - or should I say Tiger."
Get more enjoyment from your golf by taking a golf vacation!
John Hartley is a keen golfer, who has played and studied the game for many years and been fortunate to play in several different countries, including Scotland and Australia. He runs http://www.swingingagolfclub.com a website full of information about golf and golf equipment.
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