18th hole, Leven Links, Fife, Scotland

Architect: Old Tom Morris 

Back tee*: 457 yards / 418 metres

Joe Average tee*: 456 yards / 417 metres

Green fee: £40, Nov.–Mar. at selected times

How she looks

*Distances taken from club website or, if unavailable there, from Swingu.

It might not look much from the tee but the more you progress down the fairway, the more you begin to realise why this is regarded as one of the harder closing holes in golf.

Rough, gorse and concealed bunkers await the errant drive, depending on which side you miss but the reward for finding the narrow fairway, if you're long enough and game enough, is an exhilarating approach.

Good news: the green is the size of a dance floor. Bad news: the prevailing wind (and any winter sun) is in your face and Scoonie Burn guards the front and right side of the green.

Yes, for those of you whose budget or schedule doesn't run to playing the real thing, 35 miles further north, this corner of Leven Links is 'Carnoustie Lite'. As with its more famous counterpart, what's more, the word 'burn'  does little justice to the pronounced trench separating you from the putting surface at Leven.

Scoonie makes this hole, whether you're going for the flag with a medium iron or with a pitching wedge, having laid up with your second shot. Yet even if you stay dry, the Links aren't done with you just yet.

Many golfers get little practice at the kind of expeditionary-length putt that double or single greens of linksland routinely call for, so you'll have done yourself a favour if you considered accuracy as well as survival when executing your approach.

Viewed from the fairway, the 1,200-yd² green falls more than three feet from the back-left to front-right corners and should be carefully assessed for future reference earlier in your round, while you're waiting to drive from the adjacent first tee.

One footnote concerning your approach shot. The wall to the right of the putting surface surrounds the local bowling green. Tempting as it might be to attempt a recovery shot for the ages from the next-best manicured piece of turf in the neighbourhood, I'm pretty sure it's OB.