OK, so my tolerance here is well beyond the norm. For example Askernish sits amongst my favourite courses without even needing an asterisk for conditioning.
Last week I 'played' golf at a whole new level...
We turned up at a family run course in the Hawkes Bay called Wairunga. It's near Cape Kidnappers and the story goes that, from time to time, guests come out to play Wairunga and are taken around on 4x4s. I think some of the Renaissance guys discovered it a few years ago and I've been meaning to visit for ages. It's the ultimate country course, volunteer run on land owned by some local farmers. The land has some great shapes and the nine holes have some clever designed mixed with phenomenal coastal views.
We turned up and things looked a little concerning, even given expectations. The owner popped out and told us that 'they don't do golf' anymore and that the grass hadn't been cut for months. The fairways were a feet high, the holes hadn't been cut and whilst the odd flag was still standing the only way of discerning the green was the white stakes that held up the old electric fences. The greens had a mixture of green speeds with grass heights ranging from 5cm to around 75cm high (2.5 feet high). On one (particularly stunning par three) we lost two balls on the green in waist high grass. By the fifth hole, our bags becoming lighter with a worrying lack of golf balls, we were faced with a 500+ yard monster. Competitive juices kicked in and we resorted to pitching the ball criss-cross across the terrain so that we could complete the hold - deploying a completely new mode of 'strategy'.
A raw form of golf that isn't necessarily recommended but, with good mates and the right attitude, it was a hell of a lot of fun!!