What you'll find inside No.4
In No.4 we explore what it's like to play the old course in reverse, we catch up with an unlikely band of brothers at Kingsbarns, and we have some tea with our golf at Machrie on the Isle of Arran. We also bring you a piece from golf's very own Banksy - Shanksy. And a historic golf club that's endangered of being lost to the sea.
Life Before Ace
Words by Reece Witters
Photography by Stuart Kerr
I'm not religious, but i'm a devoted golfer. We golfers are all the same, we can't hide our compulsion. We stick out like a strong right thumb on an overlapping grip. I see the guy practising his inside takeaway while filling up with gas, or the white leather glove hanging out of the back pocket of the elderly man queuing for his morning caffeine.
Keeping It Right Seems Strange
Words by Murray Bothwell
Photography by Robbie Spriddle
Why would someone put so many hidden bunkers on a course? The answer is, quite simply, that they're only hidden when you play the course in today's counter-clockwise direction. Many of the courses' 112 bunkers, and other design characteristics, begin to make more sense only when played the other way around.
Golfaholics Anonymous
Words by Reece Witters
Photography by Stuart Currie
My name is xxxxxxxxxxxx, and i'm hopelessly addicted, I'm a golfaholic. I came here for support, and to open up about my recent troubles. Everything has gone a bit wayward lately. and I want to get back on the straight and narrow.
The Divotologists
Words by Kenny Pallas
Photography by Graeme McCubbin
It's a wet April morning, the spring showers are quenching the beautiful links turf and the light is low. It's 6am and most of the paid greens staff haven't even arrived, yet a small unlikely group have started to gather. Retired butchers, postmen and police officers make up some of the characters on show.
Nature's Wicked Slice
Words by Murray Bothwell
Photography by Stuart Currie
The "1562" course at Montrose is the epitome of classic links golf - undulating fairways, pot bunkers, springy yet quick draining turf with nature's flora in the first cut, bountiful gorse, sand and fantastic greens. Those holes that run alongside the rugged coastline and sit today upon its marram-clad dunes really do offer some stunning scenery. How much longer those dunes can survive nature's own wicked slice remain to be seen.
Golf & Tea For Everyone
Words by Jim Hartsell
Photography by Graeme McCubbin
Settling my £15 green fee, i ordered mushroom soup and a cheese toastie. The friendly lady at the counter asked me how i enjoyed the course. "It was perfect," I said. Golf and tea for everyone.
Clubs Do Travel, Don't They?
Words by Kenny Pallas
Photography by Graeme McCubbin
Have you ever felt the urge to pack everything in and just play golf instead? Whilst the last couple of years have given many of us time and space to consider our living situations, there was one frustrated golfer who did decide that a golfing life was for him. He put the day job on hold and moved into a self-built camper van to take the pandemic by the horns.