Golf is reliant on and inextricably linked with water for so many reasons. Obviously, the playing surfaces and all other flora and fauna associated with our courses couldn’t exist without it. But crucially, in its many guises, then to a lesser or greater degree it is a feature of the design and strategy of the majority of golf courses all over the world.
Few courses of note don’t have some form of water-related feature that the golfer must consider at some point in the round, whether it’s an innocuous-looking burn or drainage ditch, or an in-your-face lake that could fit a pod of blue whales. Our oldest and most revered links nestle by the sea, and while the water itself may come and go, the coastal margins are still a source both of wonder and anguish for most of us.
