On playing the ground

The commonest mistake a visitor makes here is not club selection. It is landing the ball where they want it to finish.

On a firm links the ball is going to run twenty to forty yards on any shot struck below a certain height, and the interesting question is never where it pitches but where it stops. That changes the game from a target sport into something closer to bowls. You are picking a slope, not a spot.

It takes about nine holes to stop fighting it and roughly a season to start enjoying it.