Lundin

"If the bunkers don't get you, the burns surely will."

I mused the words of an old sage when I discovered my ball in a revetted trap on the fairway of the final hole at Lundin Golf Club.

Sure enough, sand had cost me a pleasing score around links that can boast some of the finest views in Scotland and some of the most testing holes.

Lundin is in the St Andrews belt and benefits from those wanting more Fife golf during their pilgrimage to the Old Course.

Thus, North Americans were among those ready to tee it up as we indulged in a hearty breakfast in its clubhouse.

Open Champion James Braid was born down the road in Elie, and among the artefacts on show were receipts from the great man.

In 1909, he extensively redesigned the original Tom Morris course and much more recently, Martin Ebert has been working on bunkering and other features.

Every hole poses a significant challenge at Lundin, and several have multiple obstacles to success.

I discovered this as early as the first hole, which runs adjacent to the beach – firing my drive into a deep bunker and then seeing what I thought was a good approach to a perched green fall down the false front.

Mrs W had no such travails – she launched a three-wood, it zipped onto the putting surface, and she rattled in a birdie putt from 30 feet. In our Stableford points match, she was five up after one hole!

The next three holes adjacent to the beach demand keen course management to yield results.

The second is a short par-four, but a fairway pot bunker and the fork of the course's burn can cause problems for those who miscalculate yardages.

Seven sand traps protect the third, which big hitters may consider driveable, while the stroke index-one hole, Mile Dyke, is one of the best holes at Lundin.

This is a long par-four, and the big decision is whether to take on the burn, which runs through a steep dip in front of the green. I can vouch that a lay-up can be profitable.

The links originally consisted of nine holes from Leven and nine holes from the current Lundin course. An annual match is still played on that original layout.

The border between the courses is at the side of the fifth hole, and if Leven is as quirky and enjoyable as Lundin, I would happily play a round there.

I digress.

A new sandscrape is prominent on the par-three, with water in front and bunkers and out-of-bounds to the rear.

One of the few blind shots is on the seventh, which some might think should be a cinch at just 266 yards off the yellow tees.

However, players must be aware of out-of-bounds down the right and the burn, which is cut into a steep drop in front of the hole. 

The par-five ninth sweeps down between trees on the left and bunkers on the right, but another obstacle is those driving in the opposite direction from the eighth.

With balls bouncing no more than ten yards away, I felt like I was in a shooting gallery.

The traffic is even heavier on the tenth, one of the most intense holes I have ever played.

From the tee of this par-four, the marker post seems to be surrounded by rough, so the obvious bailout is down the right onto the 11th fairway.

However, golfers were playing there, so I found myself trying to fly over a sand trap, which I duly found.

Even if I had cleared it, I would have been faced with a shot into a narrow green protected by a massive doughnut bunker and tiny pot traps. A score here would have been very well earned.

Lundin's par-threes are out of the top drawer and include the 12th, which is only 150 yards long but ascends sharply to a tabletop green with a perilous run-off to the right.

Deep bunkers will gather short shots, and smaller ones await any bailing out to the left.

Meanwhile, the downhill 177-yard 14th was called Perfection, even before renovation that removed much of the gorse in front of the hole.

Instead, players must now hit over a sandscrape into the green, which has a boundary wall to its rear. Recording pars on both of those short holes was my achievement of the day.

I watched my approach to the 420-yard par-four 15th with appreciation because it skipped over the fairway's bumps and hollows towards the flag only to be thrust to its right by the green's undulations.

Nevertheless, I envisioned a very positive score after securing my par.

Unfortunately, I could not press home my advantage, misjudging my chip into the short par-four 16th and sliding towards the sign marking the site of the former Lundin railway station on the 17th.

But the last completed my bookend of failure because, like the first hole, I recorded a card-wrecking triple bogey.

That should not detract from the quality of the 18th – a 440-yarder with a shared fairway with the first hole.

This means the bunkers where I had come a cropper on the first are down the right, while the out-of-bounds boundary of the practice ground is on the left.

I rasped a handsome drive down the middle but was aghast to see my well-struck blind second shot had lodged in the face of a deep trap 80 yards short of the hole.

I took two shots to extricate the ball and only reached the front of a huge uphill green with my next.

But, instead of being frustrated by falling short at the last minute, I was inspired to want to return to these beautiful, traditional links to do better next time.