Golf, by TourMiss

It is just after 6.30am Monday morning and the day after Frenchman Victor Dubuisson became the first-ever Turkish Airlines Open champion. There is a few people on the practice putting green but no one on the first tee of the Montgomerie Maxx Royal course. The sun is starting to make its present felt on a morning where there is not a cloud in the sky. I stand on the first tee and I am thinking of the MasterCard advertisement – Priceless. I tee up noticing a man and a woman ahead of me but then ...

One of the European Tour’s leading photographers and myself had the opportunity to play one of the 10 Mission Hills course at Hainan Island ahead of the Match at Mission Hills. Having played the Stone Quarry course during the course of the 2011 World Cup of Golf I asked if I could again play this course – No. 7 of the 10 courses at this spectacular new golfing destination off the Chinese mainland. All 10 courses at Mission Hills Hainan Island were designed by the American-born team of ...

There are at least a half-a-dozen to ten tournaments I have attended where the winner is not presented with a trophy but also fitted with a victory jacket. A stunning gold coloured silk jacket is fitted to the winner each year of the Volvo China Open and the new Australian Masters champion is presented with a ‘Golden Wattle’ coloured jacket. On the PGA Tour winners of the Arnold Palmer Invitational, the Wells Fargo Championship, RBC Heritage and the Byron Nelson Championship are presented ...

The Aloha Golf Club on Spain’s Costa del Sol should be no stranger to serious golf fans as it played host in 2007, 2008 and more recently 2012 to the Andalucian Open. England’s Lee Westwood lifted the trophy in 2007, Frenchman Thomas Levet dedicated his 2008 success to an then ailing Seve Ballesteros while his compatriot, Julian Quesne posted a new course record of 64 to win last year. Reporting on Quesne’s victory was the first time I had visited the club and this has always been ...

There’s no denying the subject of golf and marriage will long be the butt of many jokes. However for a first occasion in more than 25 years reporting on golf around the world I came across a scenario where golf and marriage are joined in harmony. Earlier this year (2013) Tour Miss and myself, along with neighbour, Mary Heal and very good friend, George Morris set out on a trip to the Scotland Western Isles of Lewis and Harris. However rather than be delayed in any traffic we made the decision ...

First-time visitors to Cardigan Golf Club in Wales are easily recognizable. They’re usually the ones constantly taking photographs of the views from this stunning course perched high above the shores of Cardigan Bay on the Teifi Estuary. The course commands fantastic views not only of Cardigan Bay but also the distant Preseli Hills, the Lleyn Peninsula and the legendary Bardsey Island or the ‘Island of 20,000 saints’ lying just two miles off the coast. Brief Club History Golf was first played ...

Just a short distance inland from the ‘beautiful people’ playgrounds of St. Tropez and St. Maxine on the sun-splashed Mediterranean is a playground of a different kind. Beauvallon Golf Club doesn’t stand on ceremony and would not bat an eye lid if you arrived in a gleaming Ferrari or a mud-spattered mini or whether you’ve been on the front cover of a glossy magazine or the back pages of local rag. As the name implies, Beauvallon translates into beautiful valley and beautiful it is. The course ...