WHILST enjoying Nick Rodger’s excellent nostalgic piece on the re-scheduling of the Scottish Boys’ Golf Championship, I wonder

whether the young Stromness club hopeful he mentioned as having made the trek to West Kilbride only to lose 8&7 actually existed and or whether Stromness represented what your golf correspondent thought was the outer limit of the game of golf (“The start of the season just won’t be the same without Scottish Boys’ Championship”, Final Say, Herald Sport, March 28).

Your writer could ask a couple of my fellow members, one Sandy Lyle and Dean Robertson, former Italian Open winner and high-performance golf coach at the University of Stirling, their views on that.

Oh, and the former world number one, Luke Donald, is the great great grandson of a local man William Slater who founded and whose family ran Orkney’s leading wine and spirit merchants for around a century. He might also have an opinion.

As a true “hidden gem” Nick Rodger can find a beautiful photograph of the Stromness links in this year’s Scottish Golf Courses calendar where it is joined, in a supporting role, by Royal Troon, Carnoustie, Royal Dornoch, Trump (who?) Turnberry, Gleneagles, Gullane No1 and St Andrews.

Sandy Lyle describes it as “golf as it should be played”.

Nick Rodger will be guaranteed a warm welcome but should beware the terrifying 15th.

DB Watson,

Member, Stromness Golf Club,

Saviskaill, Langdales Ave, Cumbernauld.