I just returned from a week on South Uist where I played 5 rounds (well, nearly, more of which later) at Askernish, which I had joined in advance. I know that at least one person out there is keen for my views.
For those that don't know, South Uist is one of the Outer Hebrides, a string of islands off the west coast of Scotland which are as remote as the UK gets. A small population of genuinely lovely people live on islands which can be as beautiful as anywhere on earth and must, in winter, be nearly as bleak as anywhere. The islands are lined with utterly gorgeous beaches but, as should be expected of a string of islands separated from Canada only by a couple of thousand miles of Atlantic ocean are subject to a windy and variable climate.
The history of the current course at Askernish has been widely discussed here and there are a number of photo threads that can relatively easily be found. This post is not a profile of the course nor a detailed analysis but rather my impression of the golf course. There's no doubt that Askernish is an extremely beautiful place, sitting as it does on the dunes dividing the island from the ocean. Nor is there any denying that a number of the holes are, simply, stunning to look at. Minimal (if any) earth moving was done to create the course and, as other threads discuss, conditioning is basic. It is worth noting now that the rough is almost unique to Askernish. The dunes it sits on are populated by the Machair, a local plantlife which, in spring, is particularly beautiful. It is, however, thick, deep (at least 6 inches deep) and verdant. As rough, it makes the long grass at Muirfield look like the first cut at Augusta.
Askernish has simply extraordinary but utterly brilliant greens. Yes, as other posts explain, they are slow, but they are not too slow for the shape that they are and the best of them are thrilling.
Almost without exception, Askernish has attracted great praise here. There is no doubt that a number of the holes are great, or potentially great holes. 2 is a wonderful par 3 with a green with a ridge running across it, and a dune protecting the front right. 4 is a par 4 with a narrowing fairway and a green placed on a hill which repels all but the most perfectly struck approach. 6 is a long par 5 (Askernish opens and closes with a pair of gentle, relatively flat par 5s, The other par fives are long and difficult) with a green at the top of a steep slope. 7 is a wonderful long par 4, with a drive to be threaded between dunes and a long approach to a benched green in the dunes. 8 is, in my opinion, one of the greatest short par 4s I have ever seen, the tee shot must take on a gully cutting in to the fairway from the right, the elevated green sits atop a dune with a deep bunker eating into the front right of the green. 12 is a long par 5 with two fairways. I thought the left, shorter fairway was redundant, requiring as it did a 220 yard carry to a narrow ribbon of cut grass until both my teenage sons hit the fairway in our last round there. The green, protected by another of the very few bunkers on the course, runs away at an angle. 14 is a wonderful par 3 to a plateau green, where any miss is trouble. 15 another narrowing fairway and a fantastic, shallow punchbowl green. 16 has yet another narrowing fairway from an elevated tee but with a mound on the left which can help propel a tee shot forwards, before an approach, likely with a short iron, to an utterly extraordinary, entirely insane but utterly brilliant green complex, another punchbowl but with a volcano-like mound sitting in front of it.
The people I met at Askernish were, without exception, very friendly and generous. I am proud to be a member of a club that those people are members of.
However, there's a but, and it's a very big but. I played three rounds in a strong south westerly wind. One in a stiff breeze from the same direction and one with a more gentle North Easterly. The course has, as described, a number of great or potentially great holes and is as beautiful a golf course as I have seen. But I didn't enjoy it very much.
I don't mind, indeed I really quite enjoy difficult golf courses. I love Muirfield, I really enjoyed my rounds at Carnoustie and Wolf Run, despite not breaking 100 at either. Unlike, say, Sean Arble, I don't mind the rough at Muirfield and its punitive nature. However, I have never lost as many balls as I did at Askernish. The rough, even just off the fairway, is brutally thick and deep. The fairways, for such an exposed course, are not wide. It seemed, at times, that any, even slight, missed shot was a lost ball. The 11th is a much photographed long par 3, to a green sitting on the top of a dune, right by the beach. But it requires a 170 yard carry. Into the wind I encountered on the second and third days I was there, I simply did not have a shot to make that carry and failure was a guaranteed lost ball. There's no bail out. In my third round, I walked straight from the 10th green to the 12th tee. Simply no point trying to play a shot that is, for me (I'm, I like to think, a decent 11 handicap), impossible. Down a gentle breeze my lovely, gentle draw was all over the flag. The result was the same, a lost ball, presumably through the back, on the dune down to the beach.
The 6th has a new tee, offset to the right, to give a spectacular view of the beach. What it means, into the wind, however, is that the golfer is faced with a tee shot to a ribbon of fairway at an angle. Any miss, be it right, left, long or short of this effective Cape shot, is, guess what, a lost ball. That is the story of a round at Askernish, any small error results at least in a long search and most likely a lost ball. That is deeply frustrating. In my five rounds there I played "well" (in that I mostly hit the ball well) twice, moderately twice and poorly once. In one round, in the strongest wind, I was simply so frustrated by the difficulty that I walked off the course after hitting a well struck tee shot on 7 which caught the wind and missed the fairway by, perhaps, 3 yards, never to be found again. On one occasion, as stated above, I simply didn't bother playing the 11th, as there was no point, there was no possibility but yet another lost ball.
Perhaps the most frustrating thing is that this beautiful, extraordinary golf course could, indeed should, be a great course. All it needs is for the rough to be managed. I know the club has a very limited budget but the islands are populated by sheep. Let them loose on the course (as they are at Kington amd Brora, and as cows are at Pennard) and I suspect the problem would be solved.
Askernish is a great place and the story of the golf club there is full of romance. I can't help feeling that that romance has clouded the views of some of the reviewers I have read. As it is now (or at least was last week), Askernish is just too hard to be enjoyable for me. Constant searching for balls, lost balls and the like are not fun, at least not when a feature of virtually every hole. As I mentioned above, I played three of those rounds with my twin teenage sons. They're decent sportsmen but not overly keen golfers. Both love the quirk and challenge of Kington. Both would quite happily never play at Askernish again. For me that is a tragedy, because there is something truly wonderful there, if only it could be made less of an ordeal to get your ball round it.
No doubt I'll be contradicted to those who have loved their time there. Indeed, I quite look forward to it. But can any of you honestly say that a course with a less romantic back story would get a free pass on the brutal rough and sheer difficulty of Askernish? Can anyone really say that this course would not be elevated substantially by an easing of the rough?