The day dawned on 4 seedy looking individuals desperately practising on the putting green, trying to figure out how to hit a golf ball when there appears to be two of them and neither is keeping still.

Our planned quiet night had turned into a long night of eating too much, drinking too much and making fun of each others hair or lack thereof. Waking up bleary eyed we tramped down to the worlds most expensive breakfast (what is it with hotels? What they give you with cheap beer they more than take back with the ludicrously priced breakfasts that you then need to keep the beer down the morning after) before gathering our things and shuffling off to the practise green. With dew still on the ground and aching heads we were so wrapped up in practise that we forgot the time. Only when someone glanced at their watch did we realise that we were due on the tee did we grab our bags and hightail it.We reached the first tee with only a minute to spare, where we were greeted by the unimpressed starter and the 2 foursomes that would be following us. Now you’ll excuse me for saying that turning up late having run several hundreds yards with a full golf bag and feeling hung-over is not the best way to prepare for any first tee. Let alone the first tee of a top quality course in front of a knowing audience, all of whom are secretly hoping that you make a tit of yourself for their amusement.

I was just about to ask the others if it was a good idea for me to go first as I hadn’t bothered to do any stretching or even take any warm-up swings when I was shoved forward onto the tee by 4 pairs of hands (the starter must have seen this sort of thing before and decided to join in the fun) as the sacrificial lamb.

Going off first in the group on the first tee is never my favourite thing to do, especially in front of an audience, especially on a course I’ve never played before and especially when I have the starter waving his hands at me to hurry up and my friends waving their hands at me in a way that I would like to think was wishing me well but in all accuracy was wishing me to screw up as much as humanly possible.

The first hole at Penina is an absolute beauty.  Four hundred and twenty seven yards of a dog-leg left, you tee off from a highly elevated tee right next to the hotel onto a tight fairway with OB on the left, thick trees down the right and a couple of bunkers in the landing zone to catch any drives that are almost, but not quite,  good enough.

Curiously I could see none of this. All I could see was the apparently tiny head of my 3 wood, a white ball bearing on the tee and a gun barrel narrow fairway. In the tradition of hackers everywhere, I prayed to whatever golfing gods there are – ‘Please, please let me get it on the fairway’. I made a couple of shaky practise swings.  I gripped my club, closed my eyes, remembered myself and opened them again and made my swing. By some fluke and some deft manipulation of my hands when I realised that I was more likely to hit the hotel rather than the fairway, I caught it flush and it flew sweetly down the middle. It was even good enough to rouse a smattering of applause and some appreciative nods from the waiting foursomes as it got a kick away from the bunkers and stopped in what I can modestly describe as position A.

 Ha, this lamb had kicked back! My so called friends were now the hunted and not the hunters. The glee in their eyes at the prospect of me having to tee of first was gone. What they had forgotten was that while it’s tough being the first off, that it’s nothing compared to being the last off when everyone else has hit great shots. Now the question was – who would be the first to crack?

Alex strolled up, and befitting a man who lands tin cans full of hundreds of human beings every week, stroked a drive down the middle as it was nothing (although he later admitted that he had been, in his words ‘cacking’ his pants’). He doffed his imaginary pilots cap in the way I’m sure he does after every safe landing and sauntered back.

Homer strode onto the tee next. Annoyingly, he is one of those people who seems to be unaffected by imbibing excessive amount of beer/wine/spirits/all of the above. While everyone else is talking to God on the big white porcelain telephone, Homer is standing there bright eyed and bushy tailed (although when pushed he might admit to feeling a little tired) with a big grin on his face. So of all of us, Homer was the one in best shape, or more accurately in least bad shape. Having convinced himself that his massive hybrid shot of the day before was completely normal rather than the miracle that the rest of us knew it was, he thought that this was the time to repeat it. Showing that golf has a way with the golfer who is feeling cocky, he promptly shanked the ball 90 degrees from the intended direction.

It is interesting to know that when you are 6ft 5 and built like a brick outhouse, nobody makes fun of your bad shots. There was only a respectful silence from the gathered crowd as he re-tee’d, glared at the ball, watched it fall off the tee in terror, re-tee’d again and smashed it down the middle. The only people to make a noise was us, quietly sniggering. Myself and Alex because it could have so easy been us and Billy because it wasn’t him. Billy, free from the pressure to hit a good shot following Homer’s effort, hit a gentle fade into the edge of the short stuff and we were off.

Once we were away from the pressure cooker of the first tee, we could finally relax and enjoy ourselves. Playing on a stunning course in great condition in good weather is a fantastic experience, even more so when you are playing with your best friends. The laugher started as soon as we were out of earshot and continued all day.

There are something like 400,000 trees on the Penina courses and we spent more time wandering in them that we did on the immaculate fairways. On such an impressive course, you get much more of an idea of the demands made on professionals: the tight landing areas, the glass slick greens, the risk/reward options on reachable par 4’s and shorter par 5’s. It would have been difficult to pick any one hole as the best but special mention must be made of the par 3 13^th. At 204 yards from the back there is water all the way down the right hand side. Starting from the right of the tee box the water encroaches more the further you go towards the hole, curving right out into the middle of what would be the fairway before straightening to meet the centre front of the green. That day the flag was reasonable accessible, being on the left side of the green but I only can imagine how difficult a pin tucked away on the right side would be. Yours truly managed to thin a shot onto the left side of the green, Alex was just short, where he could easily chip up and make par, while Billy and Homer got wet. Billy’s shot was by far the best, skimming across the water like one of Barnes Wallis’ finest and almost making it to the far bank and the 14^th fairway before finally sinking.

 A few more visits to other water hazards and many more visits to the trees later, we finally finished our round. Tired and happy (and especially happy that the walk from the 18^th green to the bar is all of 50 yards) where we could talk about our best shots, the putts that lipped out and how we nearly pulled of that miracle escape and more importantly, how we were going to play the course tomorrow, our final day at Penina.