On a very hilly piece of ground just off the West Sands at St. Andrews, near the Jubilee and Eden golf courses, some demented person had the crazy idea of creating a putting green. Unlike conventional putting greens, perfectly flat so you can practise your strokes, this one had hills and valleys between every tee and hole. Everyone called it the Himalayas. You had to calculate how to use the hills to curve the ball as close as you could manage to the hole. We played it often on sunny afternoons, and on windy ones which were more common.
There was a challenge match between teams from the political right and left, with the right represented by the Tory Club, and the left by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Putting. We played for the ashes, burning our poster of Edward Heath and their one of Harold Wilson, and sealing the ashes into the base of a trophy cup. We turned up in dinner jackets and gowns, while the left dressed as revolutionaries in Ché Guevara or red T-shirts and bandanas. The right wingers won, aided by a superb round by Allen Stewart, later a Tory MP and Minister of State. We drank the champagne we had brought along in anticipation. Three members of the winning team went on to found the Adam Smith Institute.