Fore he's a jolly good fellow

On Saturday I had the enjoyable experience of playing golf. This is not something I thought I would say as I remember playing twice before when i was a kid and I hadn't really enjoyed it all that much. From memory all it involved was walking about fields looking for lost golf balls with an enormous mass of metal sticks strapped to your back.

But as it was my cousins stag do, I was willing to make a fool of myself.

I was a little nervous, stepping up to the first tea, with the rest of our group, all semi-regular players, watching on.

I set myself, swung the borrowed club and instead of the swish of empty air I had expected, I was pleasantly surprised to see the ball zoom off into the distance. Success, I had hit the ball, the others were quite surprised but not as much as me. Sadly, my next shot sent it into a nearby field, but never mind.
The course that I proceeded to hack round was the Mearns Castle Golf Academy in Newton Mearns, which is a lot closer that I thought, though its maze of streets are a bit confusing to the uninitiated, but that might have been due to Google maps directions being wrong.

Despite being very enjoyable the course did seem to be a little on the difficult side as we lost a ton of golf balls into the trees, bushes and fields.

Its only nine holes, but I think that's probably enough for beginners - though its still a long walk and I'd recommend paying £1.50 and getting a trolley for the clubs. A round costs £9 weekdays for adults and £7 for kiddies but everyone pays £10 on weekends. They are open every day from 9am til 10pm but they advise phoning and booking just in case.
The club house was very nice, housing a golf shop, gym, tuition centre, (With driving range and classes in chipping, putting etc. See their website for beginners or kids classes) and a nice bar/ restaurant run by Mr. Singhs Indian restaurant from Charring Cross to stuff your face with once you are done. Thankfully, the course is open to non members and does not insist you wear silly long socks, badly coloured jumpers or daft wee hats and you can get away with jeans. (My cousin even got away playing the last hole in a leotard - it was his stag do after all.)

All in all I was pleasantly surprised and think I might go back for another game sometime soon and try and improve on my score. Is +27 any good?


Here's a list of other Southside courses for those that fancy a game. Be warned that we haven't investigated these and therefore some are probably private courses where you need to go through some kind of rigorous membership initiation involving black socks, chickens and balancing on one leg.

Queens Park, pitch and putt - free
Pollok Park Golf Club