Breakfast is accompanied by an organ. From the road-boom we head towards Skibo Castle, where Madonna and Guy Richie were married in 2002, and walk straight into Carnegie Club’s Thursday breakfast, which includes a church organ recital -live. LINKS75′s chin is still on the floor when we are kindly but firmly directed towards our waiting host on this very private golf course. Once inside we are not guests, we are members. David, who holds the course record at Cruden Bay ( 63 shots), greets us. We have our own locker in the changing room and a guest medallion in thick metal with engraved names. Eight players move around in the clubhouse and in the changing room we hear two members say, “It´s very bizzy here today”. In total, 1000 rounds were played last year – barely two 4balls a day. We fight over order of play with the other six golfers for the day and head out on the Skibo Tour:
1) Like a Virgin – a nearly untouched course begins with a tough links hole, a narrow 398 yards normally played into a headwind.
2) Into the Groove – a wonderful dogleg to the right that requires 240 yards past sand dunes to reach an elevated green.
3) Holiday – a surprisingly easy par 5.
4) Open Your Heart – the course’s first par 3 – dead straight and par.
5) Who’s That Girl – yet another par 5, 537 yards, and a long hole becomes longer as we thrash around in the elephant grass
6) La Isla Bonita – a par 3 like a perfectly cut facet of a diamond – 142 yards – with large sand dunes in front of the green, which at the back open onto a very small sloping green. LINKS75 holds up the group.
6th hole, Skibo Castle
7) Vogue – A superb par 4 – short, 311 yards with double fairways between two bunkers, elephant grass and steeply elevated green. Two easy pars.
8) Lucky Star – another short par 4, 333 yards, sloping needle-thin fairway with water to the right. Anything but an iron is doomed to be strictly punished.
9) Cherish – a par 3, 178 yards, a bunker but alas so difficult.
10) Girls Gone Wild – par 4, 472 yards, says it all!
11) Like a Prayer – par 4, 418 yards, dogleg to the right with water along the entire right hand side. Keep going!! Birdie from the secondball
12) Express Yourself – par 4, 379 yards, with even more water and an even more demanding par.
12th hole, Skibo Castle
13) Hang Up – par 3 – water to the right, water behind and only the green is dry.
14) Four Minutes – par 5 towards the waiting clubhouse – LINKS75 shouts out Skibo’s only “Fore!” this Thursday! Maybe the only one this entire week.
15) Material Girl – par 3 with clubhouse as backdrop – birdie.
16) Justify My Love – the start of the finishing trio – a par 4, 400 yards, with out of bounds to the left and elephant grass to the right.
17) Papa Don’t Preach – a jewel – a short par 4, 267 yards, with a fantastic five-leaf clover of deep Skibo bunkers placed in front of the putting surface of short-cut grass.
18) Celebration – par 5, 515 yards, dogleg to the left with water the whole way to the green which is overlooked by the big panoramic windows in the bar.
MrJ and MrL all square.
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