"I walked to every Irish links!"

My mad idea came to me when I was planning a boys’ golf trip. I printed out a golfing map of Ireland to see which area would be good for a bunch of us to travel to and then noticed something. Links courses ring the entire coast of Ireland, and when you marked each course with a flag, as the makers of this map had done, it made the island look like one big golf course. Eureka! Forget several courses in an area. We were going to play one giant golf course that took in two countries. And what’s more we were going to forego a tour bus and walk every step of the way!

I pitched the challenge to my buddies and, perhaps unsurprisingly, they told me where to go. Undaunted, I went it alone, throwing some clothes in a rucksack, placing 12 clubs in a pencil bag and setting off on the golfing adventure of a lifetime.

Over the next four months, I walked around Ireland playing every course on the coast – from an unkempt municipal overrun with cows to Ballybunion and Royal Portrush. And do you know what? I loved almost every second. Why only almost every second? Because like most people I don’t enjoy leaping fences to avoid angry farm animals or speeding buses.

Aside from these incidents, everything was fantastic. With my walking taking me to parts of Ireland rarely discovered by tourists (my pedometer said I did 1,100 miles) and my golf becoming more imaginative by the day. Partly this was due to having to play in all sorts of conditions and partly it was down to the challenge of links golf, but mostly it was because after a few days I’d thrown five of my clubs away to save weight. There were so many highlights during my trip, including some cracking pints of Guinness and the amazing links at Doonbeg, but if I had to recommend one place to play it would be Carne off the west coast of Mayo. It’s not just a great course set in amazing landscape; it’s also so quiet that you feel like you’re the first person to have discovered every hole. Definitely go there if you can, but if you do, make sure you hire a car. I say this, because I walked to the club and can assure you it’s miles away from anywhere.

Read more about Tom’s adventure in his book A Course Called Ireland.