Kingsbarns

Every time I play a world top 100 course, the anticipation revs up several notches.

Consequently, I expected the design of the course at Kingsbarns to live up to recently played peers at Cruden Bay, Royal Aberdeen and Trump International.

According to newly released ratings from Top100golfcourses.com, it is better than all of the above and, at nearly £448 a round, is most the costly to play.

Meanwhile, the service bar had been set the previous day at Dumbarnie which also had an impressive share of wow-factor holes.

In both instances, Kingsbarns more than ticked the box. Its service in its very busy clubhouse was speedy and while we downed tasty nosh, we looked out on various failures and a few successes of folk playing the 18th.

It transpired to be one of the classics on links than can boast many stellar holes.

However, in our view, it fell down in one crucial aspect - it took five hours and five minutes to complete our round.

And we couldn't help but think that this was down to almost every player except us having a caddie.

To my mind, it should be part of their job to encourage players to move along or wave groups through if their clients are slow.

Let's be honest, though. We allowed our frustration with the pace of play to gnaw at us too much. We should have simply accepted it and taken the extra time to study how we were going to attack the course.

Maybe it was the anticipation which made us nervy on the first tee but in front of the friendly starter and jovial club manager, I pulled my drive horribly and Mrs W topped hers.

However, there is still an opportunity to rescue a score on a par-four that meanders over an undulating fairway that dips before rising again to a green framed by the North Sea,

The beach is only yards away on the downhill par-three second hole where club selection and precision shooting are demanded to avoid the three deep greenside bunkers.

The wind was with us on the short par-five third - a dazzling hole that runs parallel to the shore and falls steeply. Indeed, regardless of where our quartet drove, all balls gathered on the right-hand side of the fairway.

I went for the green in two with a blinding three-wood strike that I thought would enter the green on the left-hand side.

Sadly, the ball caught the slope and slipped into the ten feet deep, 18-yard bunker to the right, I failed to find my way out and hopes of a birdie became a blob.

It became typical of my round. Many holes promised much but I failed to capitalise.

One very rare success came with a par on the fifth - a devilish par-four that turns to the right to a blind green surrounded by grassed dunes and gorse.

The greens at Kingsbarns are consistently huge, so the job is far from complete when approaches find the putting surface.

This was exemplified on the lovely sixth - a short par-four with the flag hidden behind a large mound. My drive was good, my second shot was better but a three-putt followed.

Ditto on the seventh, the toughest hole on the course, according to the stroke index.

This is a par-four into the wind with potential fall-offs down a crest to the left onto the adjacent third hole. I found the back of another ginormous green and failed to rescue a Stableford point.

The middle section of the course goes back towards the clubhouse and then out again, initially alongside a small forest.

But the holes that everyone will remember are back out on the coast.

Concentration is on driving right to avoid the beach on the par-five 12th which was 538-yards into the wind from the green tees.

The right side should be favoured again as the fairway curves around to the left into a green that is 65-yards long. Directly beyond it are rocks and the sea.

I was very satisfied with bogey while Podcast Partner saw his approach go over the wall that divides the fairway and the brine.

The back nine's par-threes are stunning.

The 13th is the shortest hole at Kingsbarns but precision is demanded to avoid the ball falling off the tee into deep bunkers to the right or going too far into gorse bushes to the rear of the target.

One of the most intimidating par-threes in world golf and arguably one of the most photographed is the 15th.

From the tee, the green juts towards the sea and can barely be seen between a forest on the left and rocky beach on the right.

I made the mistake of going directly at the flag and saw my ball pinball to a watery demise. Others were more sensible and took a left-side entry to another massive green.

For our game, the wind was behind on the 16th and 17th which both run alongside the beach.

The 16th is a par-five with 11 bunkers and a burn to the rear of the green. I played it sensibly but, once again, my putting let me down.

Fairway bunkers lie in wait from the tee on the 408-yard par-four 17th and four more protect a green that has a false front.

Comedy was reserved for the 18th with tactics at the forefront of our minds having seen it assailed several times from our lunch table.

The drive towards the clubhouse is straightforward enough but the big decision surrounds the second shot into a green over a burn and atop a vertical bank.

I did not have a score to preserve so initially had a three wood in my hand with the notion of going for it.

Then I watched our Canadian playing parter flush his shot only to watch it fall into the drink.

Thus, I laid up only to duff my chip and see it trickle down the bank. Fortunately, it held up before the stream but my attempt at safety had ended in fiasco.

Nevertheless, and despite our frustration at the length of our round, I had huge admiration for the quality of this course.

Kyle Phillips has done a staggering job designing Kingbarns with imagination to create links that possess huge drama but are so deliberately rustic that they feel much older than their 20 years.

It is a course that would need to be played many times to understand its nuances - however, without any members and at nearly £500 a round, few will have the chance for multiple rounds.

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