A free guide
The Links Survival Guide
How not to lose 13 balls at one of Scotland's best links. (I lost them at Western Gailes so you don't have to.)
Pop your email in, then click the button in the email I send you. The guide's waiting on the page you land on. You'll also get In the Pines, my golf letter, every Tuesday. Unsubscribe whenever you like (I'll only cry a wee bit).
What's in it
- Getting a tee time on a great links without remortgaging the house: ballots, opens, winter rates and the £35 gems everyone drives past.
- What to pack, and why the umbrella stays in the car.
- The wind: how much to club up, why your slice gets worse into it, and what to do when it moves your ball on the green.
- Leaving the driver at home, and the bunker that's three times bigger than it looks.
- Blind shots, firm greens, and why almost nobody ever flies the green.
- The bump-and-run, the Texas wedge and the seven-iron that got me my first ever eagle.
- Pot bunkers, gorse and heather: getting out, giving up, and the rules that save you shots.
- A one-page card to keep in your bag, and the links I'd send you to first.
Who's it from?
I'm Colin. I grew up on links: our house was on the first tee at Lahinch when I was wee, then it was Prestwick and Troon. My dad was a greenkeeper who went on to design courses (including the one this letter's named after). And me? I'm a twenty-something handicapper who still loses balls in the gorse. So this isn't a guide from someone who's cracked links golf. It's from someone who keeps getting battered by it, asked an architect why, and wrote down the answers.
Ross and I also do a podcast, Both Sides of Par, every Monday. He's off scratch. I'm... not. Between us we cover both sides of par.