For some folk, the idea of camping represents intolerable squalor. Your correspondent, meanwhile, is made of sterner stuff. Then again?
The last time I attempted to erect a tent, for instance, I got in such a flapping tangle with the guy ropes, I had to use my Ordnance Survey map to plot a route out of the flippin’ things.
With that unmitigated farce in mind, I opted for the easy way out on a trip to Glen Nevis at the weekend and hired one of those simple yet comfortable pods which has heat, a sink, water, plugs, potpourri and stuff.
Basically, it’s camping for big softies. Nevertheless, off we trotted for a bit of hiking.
According to the bulletin board on the site’s reception, conditions for walking were “strenuous, with buffeting gusts knocking you off balance on exposed terrain and a considerable wind chill.”
Funnily enough, those were the exact circumstances I encountered during the awkward totter from my pod to the communal toilets in the partial scuddy. What a vision, eh? Not quite Ben Nevis, more God save us.
Well, that’s what one of my startled fellow campers gasped as he glimpsed this pitiful, hirpling vision emerging from the darkness.
Anyway, we’re pitching up at the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship this week as the lucrative birl around the Old Course, Carnoustie and Kingsbarns celebrates its 25th anniversary
The Pro-Cel-Am format in golf has always been a quirky old affair, from Terry Wogan holing one of the longest putts ever recorded on tele at Gleneagles to Ronnie Corbett sizing up a tricky 7-iron over a water hazard while chuckling an anecdote about an investigation into the political beliefs of a nudist colony which revealed evidence of a definite swing to the left.
The celebrity-infused Dunhill Links, of course, is not everyone’s cup of tea. Rounds can take so long, for instance, you could be up and down the Grey Corries before Piers Morgan has reached the 13th.
Huey Lewis, the well-kent American singer and Dunhill Links regular, once stood on a tee for so long playing the moothie, he had to change the name of his band from Huey Lewis and the News to Huey Lewis and the Archive Catalogues when he finally signed his card.
As for Irish actor Jamie Dornan, the star of that racy romp, 50 Shades of Grey?
Well, the sight of him skittering a 3-wood into a stiff breeze may not be quite as titillating on the eye as his kinky, on-screen flicks with a riding crop but he continues to attract admiring glances from swooning onlookers. A bit like this correspondent when I stride into the media centre.
While defending champion Robert MacIntyre, and other world class campaigners like Justin Rose, Tommy Fleetwood, Tyrrell Hatton, Brooks Koepka and Matt Fitzpatrick, headline a field that is never lacking in star quality, the scramble for DP World Tour survival always provides an intriguing sub-plot to proceedings amid the various hits-and-giggles.
There are just four regular events of the season remaining and for those in peril on the tee, the Dunhill Links, with a tasty prize fund, can offer salvation.
Many a Scottish golfer has left it late and pulled something out of the bag on home soil to hold on to their tour cards.
The likes of David Law, Euan Walker, Cameron Adam and Danny Young will all be hoping for a timely tonic in their own backyard.
The leading 100 players on the rankings at the end of the season safeguard their place on tour. Law is currently 98th but can still hear the ominous creaking of the trap door hinges below him.
Walker is down in 125th spot while fellow rookies, Adam and Young sit 132nd and 148th respectively.
Earning a decent chunk of the $5 million purse could give them a lifeline. Fingers crossed.
That $5 million figure, by the way, is quite interesting. It’s been the same prize fund since the Dunhill Links came on the scene in 2001.
Back then, of course, most folk thought it was an extraordinary amount. And it was. Paul Lawrie’s win in the inaugural championship earned him almost double what he’d pocketed for winning The Open two years earlier.
Now, I’m not saying a $5 million prize pot is sweeties – far from it – but in recent years, money at the top end of men’s professional golf has become so awash with unthinkable riches, we almost look at it with a dismissive snort of shrugging indifference.
The game’s unsightly arms race, sparked by the emergence of the Saudi-backed LIV series which is now on the bones of its backside, skewed golf’s money market to a bewildering extent.
A quarter-of-a-century ago, the Dunhill Links seemed outrageously extravagant. Here in 2026, it’s been made to look about as modest as Steptoe’s scullery.
In fact, it’s almost got to the absurd point where multimillionaire golfers playing with a parent or a multimillionaire businessman, actor or musician is now viewed with dewy-eyed romanticism.
“That’s the real nice thing about this week,” cooed Rory McIlroy about the Dunhill Links a couple of years ago after partnering his faither in the Pro-Am. “It’s a pure form of the game, playing with your father.”
Ah, the heart-warming qualities of a $5 million purse. I’m being flippant here, but you get the idea.
Anyway, here’s to 25 years of the Dunhill Links. Come Sunday night in St Andrews, there will be another happy camper on the Old Course.
