Gabh ris a’ ghaoth

Wind (noun): The perceptible natural movement of the air, especially in the form of a current of air blowing from a particular direction.

To a golfer, wind doesn't need a scientific explanation. It's just a massive pain in the arse…

I’ve never understood this so utterly as when I played the Isle of Skye Golf Course recently. It is a true, feral gem, not simply nestled but caged between the formidable granite shoulder of Glamaig and the vast, cold snarl of the North Atlantic. It’s a short 18-hole course, two deceptively brief loops that constitute an absolute crucible for a golfer’s spirit. It is only fair to say that by the time I walked off the final green, the course hadn't just tested my spirit - it had shattered it.

I arrived at the course, which was engulfed in an eerie, profound silence. Not a soul stirred. The only sound was the lonely, hypnotic clack-clack-clack of the flag-taps against a distant mast.

I wandered over to the first tee, a tiny track almost swallowed by high, wiry heather and long, wild grass. Then, as if conjured by the ancient landscape, a small, Obi-Wan Kenobi-esque figure appeared in the distance. He walked with purpose right toward me, armed only with what looked like a vintage hickory wood, a battle-scarred 7-iron, and a putter. We stumbled past one another like ghosts in the morning mist.

He paused, looked at me. And said, “First time playing, son?”

I confessed, "Yes." He smirked and asked where I normally played, and if I was "used to proper Scottish golf." Being English and having spent most of my golfing time on manicured parkland courses, I reluctantly admitted my total inexperience.

He tapped my shoulder with his spare hand and uttered the words: "Gabh ris a’ ghaoth…”

Mystical, I know, but I don't speak Gaelic. So I asked him what it meant, and he simply replied, "Take to the wind." I should have paid closer attention to the prophetic weight in his voice, but I just offered a nervous shrug, deciding he was just a strange old man, and carried on my way.

Stepping on the first tee, the wind slapping me in the face, getting up underneath my thick layers of clothes, I knew that I was not ready to face this monster.

My nose running, grip frozen, stance altered and mustered up enough swing to ping a three iron as far as I could manage down the hill under the watchful eye of the mountain and down the fairway towards the ocean. As that small white ball pushed its way through the air, it started to whip uncontrollably from right to left, standing there completely in the hands of the gods, where I was to find the ball.

I bumbled down the fairway, a miserable, freezing search party of one. Thick grass, deep heather, perhaps an unexpected cliff edge? All options were terrifyingly possible. When I got down to the crash site, I saw the ball, nestled into the thick grass, on the other side of a centuries-old slate wall that stood as the last bastion of defence against the Atlantic’s ceaseless rage.

Seventeen more holes of the same brutal education were to follow. The wind, which had been blowing across-course, now moved direction to be at the point of most inconvenience - blowing purposely towards gorse hazards, pushing short approach shots ten yards long, and offering a bleak overview of the complete futility of my morning.

Club selection became a farce; a sevenA-iron played for 160 yards could land 120 or 210, entirely depending on the wind’s capricious mood at the exact moment of impact. I found myself hitting long irons into a short par 3 just to stop the ball from hanging in the air and blowing backwards.

Brief, mocking moments of serenity gave me false hope. The wind would stop for a moment, the sun would shine down like I was in heaven, and I would hit a crisp, perfect shot, only for it all to come crashing down back to reality as the blustery conditions returned with renewed venom.

Halfway through the back nine, completely defeated, I couldn’t help but think about my conversation before I even started this challenge. What that wise old man said to me in the mist: "Take to the wind." What did that even mean?

So, like any enlightened, wind-beaten golfer in the modern age who has completely surrendered, I dropped my bag onto a peat bank, found a rare patch of 4G, and googled it. And what I saw brought a genuine, exhausted smile to my face.

Gabh ris a’ ghaoth translates literally to "take to the wind," but its deeper, more profound, colloquial meaning is: Letting go of things you cannot control.

That's it. That is the one true lesson, and it has nothing to do with golf technique. There are a great many things we can't control on the course: in my case, the wind stealing your ball out of midair despite it definitely landing pin-high without it, the sudden, biblical rain that starts up on the walk from the car to the tee, or the boggy winter conditions we’ve all trudged through. Fighting those elements is a recipe for frustration and a shattered spirit.

But golf should ultimately be about enjoying the things we can control - the quiet determination to choose the right club, the patience to wait out a squall, the people we play with, and the glorious, ridiculous walk through the wild landscape. The old man was just saying it as it is.