Torwoodlee - Borders - Scotland

I’ve been meaning to play here for some time (especially after visiting the Hirsel course three years ago) and got the chance to do so when I competed in the club’s annual Gents Seniors Open the day before yesterday. The opening and closing holes are played out on flatter ground, close to the clubhouse by the River Gala, with the other ten holes located on very undulating terrain on the other side of the railway line that cuts through the course. There’s a few uphill holes to negotiate during a round here, most notably at the stroke index 1 5th and 420-yard 16th, but, to counter balance the climbs, there are several glorious downhill fairways to cut loose on from the tee, especially at the (spectacular) 6th and, on the inward half, the 13th and 14th. I wasn’t impressed with the short par four 4th, where trees block out the approach to a two-tiered green, but this, thankfully, was the only two-shotter to induce a bout of head scratching on my part. I’m a big fan of sensibly-sized par threes and four of Torwoodlee’s five short holes are just that, measuring between 124 and 176 yards. They’re all decent holes, especially the two on the front nine that play uphill because it’s always difficult to make that sort of hole attractive and interesting. It comes as something of a shock to the system to find the final one-shotter at the 17th is all of 234 yards from the back tees – I wonder what the original course architect, Willie Park Jnr, would make of this hole nowadays, even with the use of modern equipment? Having now played six of the top seven ranked courses in the Borders, I think Torwoodlee is probably positioned a couple of places too high in its regional chart at present so it’ll be interesting to see where it ends up when the next re-ranking exercise is carried out at the end of 2015. Jim McCann