6th hole at Memorial Park Golf Course, Texas

Its majesty may be a little ragged around the edges and the sheer challenge of finding a tee-time makes it arguably the Bethpage of the South but John Bredemus' Memorial Park Golf Course continues to be held in great affection by its devotees.

Chris Baldwin's glowing review highlights the 388-yard sixth hole, which sounds like it should be played from the two middle tees to be enjoyed at its strategic best.

That would put the pond emphatically in play at between 217 and 254 yards from the tee box, leaving you with the choice of negotiating the bottom-right corner of the water to leave yourself with a routine pitch for your approach, with the pond largely irrelevant, or alternatively driving short of the latter and accepting a 100-yard second shot across the water.


Cheap factor - Green fee to $37
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Away from Planet Cheap:

• The story of Bill Powell's dream at Clearview Golf Club. The part that strikes me isn't so much that a man had to build his own course to get a game, just because of his skin colour, as the fact that he built a course specifically where people of all colours would be welcome. Every excuse to make it blacks only yet Bill Powell was big enough to decline the opportunity.
  
  

• A view of work-in-progress on Pete Dye's Black Pearl course on the island of Roatan, 35 miles from Honduras. Your heart may sink when you see a vaguely familiar island green. More details here, where they disturbingly refer to island greens in the plural. Those on watch for Pete's final descent into madness, stay tuned...
  
  

•  Star-struck golfers who also love visiting places just so they can say, "This was in that movie...", may like to add England's Stoke Park Golf Club (a Harry Colt course) to their list. Jo Fernandez has the details:

"It was golf that started Stoke Park's film career when James Bond defeated his titular adversary on the 18th green in Goldfinger in 1964. The club has since appeared in another Bond film, Tomorrow Never Dies, as well as Bridget Jones (there's a themed package complete with Chardonnay and a copy of the film on DVD), Layer Cake and, most recently, RocknRolla"

• Pic of the Day - Colorado's Beaver Creek Golf Course. I can only assume that it's the one in the Rockies...