It all started off so promisingly as the young man in a bow tie rushed up to me in the car park. “Miss Barlow” he shrieked, arms outstretched in my direction. “Welcome to Mid Ocean Golf Club, the jewel in Bermuda’s golf crown.”

Wow! What a welcome I thought, looking startled and vaguely bemused. I tried to deduce if this was the typically friendly Bermuda way, an over excitable PR executive or someone I had met at The Swizzle Inn after one too many Dark and Stormy cocktails.

The answer to this quandary arrived on the plucky 5^th hole where I found myself ankle deep in the shimmering Mangrove Lake. How I got there and how many attempts I took to get out is irrelevant.

More importantly however, was that my friend bow-tied Charles, who had been closely monitoring my every shot from the shade of Bermuda’s local flora, found himself scurrying up to me, arms outstretched once more.

“Maisie, Maisie, it’s not too late. Take a drop,” he pleaded, his voice beyond shrieking. And as the crystal clear waters lapped at my bare ankles, I stared up at him and hollered: “Who the hell is Maisie?”

And so ended the shortest friendship known to man, lasting a mere four and a half holes because according to Charles, Maisie Barlow is a professional golfer on the LPGA circuit. Hayley Barlow is an amateur golfer whose swing, short game and course management bears little resemblance to anything bordering on the professional.

Charles looked utterly crestfallen. Not only was his idol playing like a complete fruitcake, but as it turned out, I wasn’t his idol at all.

Hard to know how you recover from something like that. Charles and I could have gone on to great things. But more pressing perhaps, I was yet to get my ball back on to something resembling greenery.

Following Charles’ advise, I took a drop, lost the hole and went on without my fan club of one to play what I only describe as one of the world’s greatest golf courses.

Mid Ocean Golf Club is private 6,520 yard, 18-hole golf course in wealthy Tucker’s Town. Designed by Charles Blair Macdonald in 1921 it is consistently placed amongst the world’s courses. The Atlantic Ocean provides a stunning backdrop, while the holes are largely set amongst pretty glades and dramatic valleys.

I’m truly sorry that Charles never got to realise his dream, but if it’s any consolation, I certainly got to realise mine in the shape of Mid Ocean Golf Club.

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