# Course Review: Kinross - The Montgomery



## slugger (Jul 12, 2010)

Rain, rain, go away...

Yep, water was pretty much the most prominent feature of the day at the glorious "Montgomery" course in Kinross. Wether it was falling from the sky, or in one of the many water hazards, water was everywhere for our round of the big brother of the two Kinross courses.

We arrived, it was raining, very heavily. We left around 5 hours later and it was still raining, very heavily. Good luck to the revelers at T in the Park which was taking place just a few good drives away up the road.

There's a visitors changing room in the very well appointed clubhouse, with lockers and showers. The lounge/bar overlooks the practice green, which was very consistent with the actual greens in play once on course.

After a quick practice putt, and a few swings into a practice net that has seen better days, it was down to the first tee in our golf buggies (don't normally use them, but it was a special occassion and i wasn't paying!). The excellent club pro showed us how to use the built in GPS fitted to each buggie, as well as electronic strokesaver, and we were on our way.

The course starts off with a relatively (everything is relative in difficulty at The Montgomery) straighforward downhill medium length par 3. It's a nice wee hole, but nothing special and is probably designed to lure you into a false sense of security before you progress through the trees and onto the 2nd. The 2nd shares a green with a hole from The Bruce, the other course at Kinross Golf. Bear this in mind if you ever play it as 2 of our group aimed for the wrong flag as they never had sight of the correct flag from the unforgiving rough they found themselves in.

From here on in, the course gets tougher and tougher, and after another par 4 and a beautiful uphill par 3 to a double plateaux green, you reach the 5th and water comes very much into play for the first time. The burn had crossed just in front of the 3rd tee, but directly in front of the 5th green, it is widened and is quite intimidating. Risk or reward in classic proportions. I risked it and was rewarded with a two putt par. Funnily enough, those who laid up, were punished with a plunge into the pool. Ha ha!

That burn is now a feature of four of the next five holes and is a great test of course management. The 11th, for me at least, is the crown jewel of any watery hole and is perhaps one of the toughest holes on the course. With a slight dogleg to the left from the tee, this par 5 has no easy shot. the 2nd is either a very ambitious carry over a sizeable pond (which i'm guessing is recent as it's just a burn on google maps) or a lay up (i mean a duffed 2nd shot  ) and a nice middle iron to the green which is protected by thick rough, trees and a couple of bunkers. It's a beautiful hole, but i'm not sure there's many more challenging out there.

From there it's another couple of par 4s and a par 3. That par 3 has been a long time coming!

The rain was still pounding down and the greens were getting increasingly slower. Any club, not just the wedges, were pretty much stopping after one bounce on the green.

The 16th hole is a wonderful par 4. A good draw round the corner of trees should find you in good position to a long approach (in this weather anyway) to a well guarded green. Mounds, dips, bunkers; one slap bang in the middle of the fairway, the other, a circle of sand, not unlike the bunker on the 18th at Muirfield.

After that, the par 3 17th is a bit of a let down. Anyone going for a score here should get a simple straightforward par, before heading to the 18th. It's a long par 4 with a glorious dip in the fairway just around the distance your drive will land. So it lands on an uphill slope. Longer hitters will clear this slope and then have a narrowing in the fairway and some mighty big trees to contend with. Average golfers have no chance of the ball bounding up the sodden wet fairways. The approach is then tree lined all the way to a nice big 18th green with a bunker guarding the left hand side. Maybe a bunker similar to the 15th guarding the front of the green would improve the hole and make it a card maker or breaker.

The Montgomery is a gem of a course, and i'd recommend it to anyone... as long as you're on your game, or don't mind raking through some of the most punishing rough i've played to date.

We played a matchplay format, and this suited the course very well. I can imagine there could have been a few tears later on in the round as the course conspired with the conditions to steal a couple of potential good scores away from us.

Back, into the clubhouse and a nice hot, if slightly underpowered, shower  

Have no fear, Kinross, I will be back


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## Region3 (Jul 12, 2010)

Nice review. Sounds like a cracker!


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