Golf, by TourMiss

Officials of the Aloha Golf Club kindly invited the media attending this week’s Open de Andalucia Costa del Sol to dinner on Thursday night of the tournament. We gathered in the wonderful Restaurante Trocadero Arena located on the beach just to the north of Marbella. It was a wonderful evening with excellent food and superb Spanish wines. Thank you especially to Luis J Navarro Alvarez, General Manager at Aloha Golf Club and his fellow executives for their generous invitation. Here is a selection ...

After covering the European Tour’s ‘2012 Desert Swing’ it was back to base in Crail, Scotland for a few weeks rest. However the thought of three weeks rugging up during the last remnants of the Scottish winter was little too much to bear. So given we had some business matters to attend to in France we jumped aboard an Easyjet flight to Lyon for what turned out to be 10 days in France. However there was one of the strangest sights on arrival at Lyon when four items of oversize luggage ...

The St. Andrews Links Trust is charged with managing seven golf courses in St. Andrews but it was not until this week I could finally lay claim to having played all seven – Old, New, Jubilee, Eden, Balgrove, Castle and now the Strathtyrum. Despite the chilly conditions, Tour Miss and myself enjoyed what turned out to be a sunny and cloudless afternoon playing a round of golf on the Strathtyrum. The course was laid out in 1993 and of the six courses located in the St. Andrews township itself, ...

Al Badia is one of the newest clubs in Dubai. It is a very challenging 18-hole par 72 course linked with the Intercontinental Hotel and located in Dubai’s Festival City. The course was designed by Robert Trent Jones and where water comes into play on some 14 holes. I joined Stuart Adams from www.golftourimages.com and Eoin Clarke from www.golffile.ie last Saturday, and ahead of the third round in the Omega Dubai Desert Classic, in tackling the course. We were first out at 6.40am and ...

For those supporters of www.golfbytourmiss.com were looking for you to put your thinking caps on and provide us with a caption to this snap taken following Tiger Woods’ third round of the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship. We’ll get Tim to judge the best caption and organise a prize for the winner.          

Having previously played the Majilis course at the Emirates Golf Club it was a pleasure to finally tee up on the Faldo Course. The course was opened in 1996 and in most visits to Dubai, and especially for the Dubai Desert Classic, it was closed to play. However thanks very much to Viren Varma from Golf in Dubai and Adrian Flanagan, who doubles as Tournament Director for the Omega Dubai Desert Classic and Ladies Desert Masters, myself and Loic Mannoni from www.golf-zone.com played the course on Saturday. Loic ...

One of the striking features of the Amata Spring Country Club is the massive structure overlooking a good portion of this week’s host Thailand Golf Championship. Amata Castle is a strange looking building and from a distance it resembles a mix of traditional Thai architecture but also there is other portions, particularly the area looking out of the 11th and 12th holes, that resemble an oversize cage. Then the portion of the castle that overlooks the large lake and the unique 17th hole floating ...