LONGEST HOLE
important in terms of our Guinness World
Record application. They also provided us
with a yardage board and tee markers, but it
was only when we stood on the mountain
ready to tee off that it really dawned on us
the absurdity of what we were attempting.
Getting there was no easy task either, and
involved hitching a lift in a jeep before
packing their equipment – golf cart included- on top of a camel. “After that, four horses
took us to the top of the mountain,” says
Rolston. “That alone was five hours of
plodding along. When we finally arrived,
there was a glacier to our right and a river
valley about 60ft below us. I hit a tee shot
and it just disappeared. Luckily I hit a
provisional ball because we lost the first. I
lost five balls that day. We came to the
conclusion that Ron would have to walk
ahead and I would aim at him so we could
see the ball land.”
The enormity of the challenge facing them
was made clearer when they spent the first
four days negotiating the White River Valley.
“It was probably the worst golf conditions we
faced because of the grass length, rocks and
how extreme the descent was,” says Rutland.
“We originally wanted to walk 2,000km in 80
days, which works out at 25km a day. But
instead of walking 5km an hour, we were
probably doing half that. I was towing a cart
which weighed between 100 and 150 kilos. It
was sleeting and snowing, and I had to wade
through swamps which were knee-deep. The
conditions were super-tough.”
By the end of the first week, they had
already repaired their golf cart twice – once
when the wheels came off, the second when
the tyre came off the rim. “That was super
nerve racking,” admits Rutland, “because if
the cart wasn’t fit for purpose, plan B was
pretty drastic. We started thinking about
hiring a camel or buying an old Russian jeep.
We were considering all scenarios, but
fortunately the conditions did improve.”
The repair jobs and the “endless searching
for golf balls” meant that they were well
behind schedule, and faced the possibility of
their visas expiring before the expedition was
complete. “The reason we chose Mongolia as
the longest hole is because it has very little
infrastructure,” says Rolston. “There are no
fences or walls and it almost looks like a
fairway. But we didn’t just pull the cart across
flat land. We must have crossed over 100
rivers and there were times when I was
hitting golf balls while Ron had stabilised
himself on a mountain with walking poles.
Once I played a shot, I was helping Ron to
push the cart up the hill inch by inch. We
were doing that an hour at a time, creeping
up these hills. It was pretty brutal.”
Their mood wasn’t helped by an unwanted
companion tagging along, and staying with
them for the duration of the journey. “After
three days, a stray dog joined us,” explains
Rutland. “That initially caused a bit of tension.
Before we started, we had counted the
number of socks so we could keep the weight
down and then all of a sudden we were
carrying 10 extra litres of water and a bit of
food for the dog.”“It wasn’t ideal,” adds Rolston, “but the dog
provided so much more than what we were
giving him. He became part of the gang; we
called him UB. He actually ended up
becoming a bit of a celebrity in Mongolia, and
there was a Facebook campaign to find him a
home. We ended up finding him a home with
a couple in the Terelj National Park, which
was quite an emotional moment.”
Beyond caring for the dog and adapting to
the conditions, one of the biggest challenges
was dealing with injuries. Rutland, a former
banker from South Africa, was left nursing an
inflamed hip and a swollen ankle, while
Rolston started suffering back and neck
spasms with two weeks to go. “I basically had
to sleep upright against all my baggage,” says
Rolston, who hails from Northern Ireland. “I
was in so much pain and trying to hit 300
balls every day slowed the recovery. In the
end, I was flicking shots about 60 yards.”
The dangers of the journey were laid bare
once they reached the Gobi Desert, which
Rutland describes as “the most inhospitable
environment you can imagine”. “We had to
plan for not seeing a human being for four or
five days, so we were carrying up to 60 litres
of water,” he says. “Though we had a
cameraman who joined us for two or three
sections for our documentary, it was just the
two of us (and the dog) for the majority of the
time. It did feel like we had the whole world to
ourselves, but I was surprised how connected
we were. We didn’t go longer than four days
without any cellphone connection.”
As a result, Rutland was able to send‘We had to plan for not seeing
another human for four or
five days, so we were carrying
up to 60 litres of water’
68 ISSUE 367 TODAYSGOLFER.CO.UK