I was lucky enough to be invited by Martin Ebert to go to South Uist for the fateful days in March 2006 when the plan for the recreation of Askernish was drawn up. It was snowing at Glasgow Airport when we boarded the small Saab plane that would take us to Benbecula, but the clouds cleared as we flew north, and I was able to see the Cuilliin Ridge as we crossed Skye. The plane crossed the Minch to the outer islands, and, as we descended across Uist and Benbecula, the drama of the landscape was clear even from several thousand feet.
A big bear of a Scotsman met us at the airport. Ralph drove us across the causeway to South Uist and we stopped briefly at the shrine of Our Lady of the Isles (South Uist is fervently Catholic, unlike North Uist, which is Presbyterian). A short while later, we turned off the island's only main road, and drove past Askernish House, the former home of Lady Cathcart, the island's nineteenth century proprietor, and out onto the links, or the machair, as it's known in these parts.
It felt like the end of the world. A small golf green (the old ninth), crudely built and surrounded by barbed wire, greeted us. There was little in the way of feature, and the ocean was not in view. Ralph drove us across the machair, up and up, and eventually came to a stop. We jumped out of the car, only to be hit by an icy blast coming from the west. We fought our way up to the top of the primary dune, where the wind was whistling, but the view was infinite. To the south-west the mountains of Barra rose into the blue sky. To the west, only water as far as Newfoundland. And to the south, the most perfect range of dunes one could ever wish to see.
The existing nine hole course occupied the relatively flat ground to the north: the first six holes of the revived course use this land. This is the area that was used as an airport during the 1930s. But close to where we were parked is the tee of the course's seventh hole. A few months later, in a similarly remote spot on the edge of the Atlantic, Steve Smyers told me that every piece of property has a focal point: this is Askernish's.
I can't, honestly, tell whether Askernish willl ever be regarded as one of the world's greatest courses. I can't tell whether it will transform the economy of South Uist, which, like the rest of the Hebrides, has been massively impacted by emigration and clearance. But of one thing I'm sure: I'll never, ever feel more connected to the roots of golf than I did on those two days.
Two years later, in March 2008, I returned to Uist. Golf architects Forrest Richardson and James Edwards were with me; another, Clyde Johnston, had been prevented from coming by flight delays. We spent two days on the island, and, in attempting to play the course, got colder and wetter than I have ever been in my life.
I used to think that golf's soul resided at Machrihanish. Now, I know I'm wrong. It lives at Askernish.