The Deep Rough Guide to Exotic Golf

One of the most frequent topics of correspondence from Anyone For Tee readers is "Where can I go to play that will not be expensive and overcrowded, where I do not need to produce a handicap certificate and where I will not be made to feel like an idiot with my Duffer's game?" Not easy questions to answer, until now.

We have joined forces with the publishers of the famous Deep Rough Travel Guides to produce a book that will surely find a home on every golfer's shelf. The Deep Rough Guide to Exotic Golf team has criss-crossed the globe, from the frozen Arctic to the balmy Atolls and from the shivering Steppes to the scorching Sahara, discovering little known, unspoilt golf courses on every continent and bringing you everything you need to know to enjoy golf "away from it all".

The Guide will be in your local bookshop in the spring, but Anyone For Tee readers can get a sneak preview in these pages, beginning next week with the Deep Rough Guide to Exotic Golf in Vampyrijstan (the breakaway republic formerly known as Transylvania).

The colourful poster of the Vampyrijstan Amateur Golf Association

The colourful poster of the Vampyrijstan Amateur Golf Association

Apart from details of all the fine courses, hotel and restaurant listings and useful travel tips, the Guide to Vampyrijstan will also provide answers to the many questions first-time visitors to this most hospitable golfing country (see picture right) will have, such as:

Q. Should I be worried when my playing partner (a local) hits a shot and immediately shouts "Bite, bite!"?
A. Only if he is talking to his caddie and not the ball.

Q. I've heard that vampires are some of the fastest players in the world. Why is this?
A. Because they only need nine shots to do 18 holes.

Q. I've been invited to play by Count Dracula, but the invitation shows a tee-time of 7pm. Is there some mistake?
A. No.

Q. Will I have to hang upside down from the rafters by my toes in the hotel?
A. No. You will be given your own, rather small but quite comfortable, wooden bed complete with lid to keep out the cold. However, if you suffer from claustrophobia, hanging from the rafters may be a better option.

Q. Do the locals play for big stakes?
A. Occasionally, but they will understand that, as a visitor, you might prefer a smaller stake. A short piece of ordinary 4 by 2, with one end whittled into a point, is usually considered sufficient, but with some of the more obstinate residents you may need to hammer this home quite forcefully.

Q. Are there any do's and don'ts I should be aware of?
A. No more than in any other foreign country. Here are a few tips to make your stay more pleasant:

At the hotel - Even the better hostelries tend not to have mirrors, making shaving and putting on make-up somewhat problematic. We recommend you pack you own. A small pocket mirror can be a lifesaver in Vampyrijstan.
Religion - Vampyrijstan is a very tolerant country, welcoming visitors of every race, creed, religion and blood group. The overt display of religious insignia, such as large crucifixes, is therefore frowned upon and may give offence.
Time-keeping - We all have friends we can categorise as early-risers or night-owls, but in Vampyrijstan the inhabitants take this to extremes. One segment of the population will only emerge after dark and party the night away, while another rises with the larks but is always locked up indoors by nightfall.
To avoid giving offence when dealing with locals, common English phrases such as "The sun's over the yardarm - fancy a drink?" or "It's getting late - how about a bite?" are best avoided unless one is absolutely certain of their bio-rhythms.
Food - Local cuisine is often delicious, if on the heavy side (do try the rhesusposynityij blutstzjworstj pictured here - a spicy blood sausage, much enjoyed as a late night snack), and passable western european fare can be found in the better hotels and specialist restaurants.
A word of warning to our French friends, however; garlic is not used in any dishes, and is indeed still officially banned in the country under the 1434 Edict of Prince Vlad II 'De Allio Horribile'.
However much this may inconvenience you, we very strongly recommend you do not bring your own. Possession of even small quantities of garlic can mean a prison sentence of up to five years, while trafficking in garlic (defined as holding more than one full head) carries a mandatory death sentence, the method of which has remained unchanged since the 15th century Edict and is reputed to have influenced the original recipe for rhesusposynityij blutstzjworstj.
On the golf course - The normal rules of golfing etiquette apply, but users of 460cc oversize drivers may like to know that waving a wooden tee peg of more than 2½ inches in length in front of an opponent is likely to be viewed as an aggressive gesture and may bring your round to a premature halt.

We believe that the Deep Rough Travel Guide to Exotic Golf will mark the future of golf tourism and provide endless enjoyment for those of us who long for something other than the stereotyped, off-the-shelf golf courses of the world. Watch out for the serialisation on Anyone For Tee, and in the meantime why not get acquainted with the Deep Rough Guide team, who have boldly gone where few golfers have gone before.

	Ray Banns is the editor of The Deep Rough Guide to Exotic Golf. A keen golfer all his life, Ray was getting bored with the traditionally packaged golfing holiday and its reassuringly expensive - but dull - predictability. "I wanted to see if I could find golf being played in the 'Deep Rough' style - off the beaten track, full of surprises and local flavour," he says. "So I asked my fellow Deep Rough journalists about golf in out of the way places, and we got travelling. I hope you enjoy it as much as we did."
	Anita Holliday has been assistant editor across many Deep Rough Guide titles, but Exotic Golf is her favourite. "I've been playing since I was a little girl," she says, "although with my constant travel, so much time in luxury hotels, trying out beaches and visiting the great sites, I don't play as much as I'd like to." A very competitive 12 handicapper, Anita was the expert of the team. "The others were really hackers, but that's the majority of golfers, so we needed to take their point of view very seriously."
	Samson Knight has been travelling the world incessantly since his early teens, when his parents were arrested in Bangkok and he was forced to return to his native Wales overland, but he is only a recent convert to golf. "I was elephant trekking in Bhutan when my elephant died underneath me," says Samson. "We were a long way from civilisation, so we hit stones with bits of dead branches all the way home to pass the time. The game seemed ridiculously easy the first time I used real clubs!"
	Chip Tynne and Dan Kaschern have been golfing buddies for almost 40 years and will happily boast that it's been over 20 years since they exchanged a cross word. That's because they haven't spoken to each other since Dan accused Chip of not counting an air shot in a bunker during a five dollar nassau in 1984. But they have no rivals when it comes to mapping every detail of the out of bounds, trees, bunkers, water or patches of rough on a new course - they're into every hazard!
	Lars Tørders is proud of his Scandinavian heritage and says he owes his adventurous nature to the Viking spirit in his veins. While this may be true, he is also not averse to Scottish, French, American or indeed any other type of spirit, and more than holds his own with wine and beer as well. Ever roaming the globe in search of another drink, Lars has been assessing golf club bars for us. On those occasions when he has been able to remember anything the next day, his comments make for fascinating reading.
	S.K. Monell likes to call himself an 'extreme golfer'. Not for him the bland comforts of the country club or the concrete-hemmed claustrophobia of the suburban course: S.K. prefers the challenge of an untamed environment where he can be close to nature and far from his fellow man - and then he can cheat to his heart's content and lie about his score later. S.K. says his ultimate fantasy is to go one better than his hero, Apollo moon astonaut Alan B. Shepard, by becoming the first man to play golf on Mars!
	Shaznee Zachaly-Gottet had never played golf before joining the Deep Rough Guide team, although she was a runner-up in the crazy golf topless rave party foursomes in Ibiza in 2002. She nevertheless threw herself into the challenge with real enthusiasm, if little skill, saying "Well, it's, like, the same, innit, only bigger?" It was however Shaznee's indispensable secretarial and organisational credentials that made her the obvious choice for the job of personal assistant to the Editor: she sleeps with Ray.
	Howie Dewing is that unusual animal - a redneck that loves to travel and play golf! He enjoys nothing more than "visiting foreign parts and telling 'em how we do things back in the good ole US of A." In a career spanning nearly 30 years, Howie has insulted more golf club staff around the world than any man alive and wouldn't take a word of it back. His brand of forthright journalism ensures that the Deep Rough Guide "tells it like it is" and is entirely responsible for the 11 lawsuits currently pending against us.
	Warren Piece has spent most of his life in the military and there are few places on earth where he has not set up an impromptu driving range to keep his 16 handicap in trim. Land mines and razor wire hold no terror for him, and he jokes that he has "had more explosions in bunkers than the lot of you put together!" Warren's most recent posting was Afghanistan and he was closely involved in the reopening of Royal Kabul Golf Club after 26 years of neglect for the playing of the 2005 Afghan Open.
	Maurice (Moe) de Grijns hails from Durban and has contributed most of the material about Africa, which he believes is the finest example of the Deep Rough Guide approach to golf. "Where else could you go after big game on safari, play golf, experience a civil war first hand and advance the cause of medical science by contracting a hitherto unknown virus, all in the same day?", he asks. With his extensive experience, Moe is equally at home on greens and browns: "I can't hole a putt on either," he jokes.
	Cliff Hangar is a veritable golfing stunt man. The more difficult the terrain, the situation and the shot, the more he loves it. To see Cliff suspended by his ankles from the branch of a California redwood 40 feet above the ground, swishing with his driver at a ball caught in foliage 10 feet below, almost defies belief, while his description of hacking a ball out of the jaws of a 15 foot alligator with his sand wedge ("the flange helps to stop the club snagging in the teeth") is journalism of the very highest calibre.
	Sam and Janet Evening are more often seen rubbing shoulders with the stars at first nights, top restaurants and ritzy night clubs than hanging around golf clubs, but we asked them to assess for us the all-important social life of the clubs we visited. From bridge parties and poker schools to shove ha'penny and the dart board, from the Lady Captain's afternoon tea and the 19th hole to the Veterans' Dinner and the Club Christmas lunch, Sam and Janet bring their trained eye to the off-course scene.