Welcome – We had a bit of a sad welcome to Four Marks, but it was nothing to do with the course itself. We had long planned a foray further south with the distance justified by seeing our fellow dog golfing friends, the Baileys. Initially intended as a reunion for Grace and Pepper, with at Grace’s departure it pivoted into an anticipated soothing dose of doggie-ness from Pepper to help our grief. But when we arrived, the Bailey’s told us that Pepper too had passed away just a few days ago from a sudden seizure. As a result, the session became a memorial round to our two beloved companions. I wore my Rhoback dog golf shirt (see above) as I had to step in as the face of Dog Golf UK for the day. The course is undergoing a bit of a refurb at the moment, but nonetheless, it is a bit of a casual aesthetic typical of such parkland courses. But always makes dog accompanying players a bit more relaxed about how fellow golfers feel about canine caddis.

Walk – The course is laid out in a tidy and fairly compact 9-hole course at only 1960 yards. Being flat it was a very easy step back onto the links after an extended time away after losing Grace (and my hip giving me a bit of gip). The exception to the flatness was the greens who seemed to all be perched on near vertical precipices. The course play, like our old girl Grace, was a bit rough, bumpy and motley.

Water – The course has small artificial ponds near holes 1, 4 and 7, but they (like many other parts of the course) were under repair so completed dried out (actually, without being spring or stream fed, most small artificial ponds of this type don’t make for good drinking as they get quite stagnant even if they do have water). Still, with such a small course, you are never very far from the clubhouse if you need to retreat there to get a drink.

Wildlife – Lots of sheep and cows in the surrounding fields, but not too many critters crossing the fairways.

Wind Down – The clubhouse itself had a lovely dining area which, as you can see from the sign below, certainly welcomed dogs. But we opted for the intriguingly named “Castle of Comfort” pub just down the road. Several very friendly dogs in the bar area greeted us. One of the simplest menus with an assortment of nicely grilled meats (with some excellent cheesy chips). So plenty of opportunities for scraps for your fellow dining dogs. In fact, the proprietor is also a butcher so you can ask him for some extra bones or scraps that he might have out back.

With the loss of Grace, we blessed to have another report from Bertie to keep the dog golf reconnaissance coming in

Having added a couple of days leave onto the platinum jubilee we thought we would entertain Bertie with another 9 holes. This time we put the doggolf.info website to test. We looked up the database of dog friendly clubs, selected Lancashire (a very small offering from Lancashire!) and the nearest to us was Poulton-le-Fylde golf club.

A quick email to confirm dogs were welcome got an instant response confirming they were and that members regularly brought their dogs with them.

It’s a nine hole course with a large clubhouse and a very nice veranda with a view onto the course. On arrival we paid at the bar, £10 each, and on the veranda was a member with a dog!

It was busy and we had managed to get the last available tee time, there were lots of people around the first tee. Poulton-le-Fylde golf club has the tag line “the friendliest golf club on the Fylde coast” and this was certainly true. Everyone wanted to be introduced to Bertie so there was a crowd when we teed off. Thankfully they both went down the middle!

It’s also a parklands course with a very relaxed atmosphere.

We now have a better understanding of how we control Bertie, we have bought a lead we can tie to posts when putting and driving, we have also developed an understanding of who should hold the lead and when. Bertie seems to be getting used to golf as well, he used to manically chase a ball and i had set aside an old ball for him but he never once chased a ball today.