Want to hurtle down a mountain by bike, have an ace time on court or bunker down with the best? Go on a coaching holiday and hone your skills in style...
Golf
IT WAS a classic Monty moment. Distracted from explaining the intricacies of his golf swing, he turned his gaze on the perpetrator. "Is it me, or has it suddenly got warmer around here?" he commented, referring to the man with the deep-red face as he struggled to switch off his elusive mobile. At least it was said with a smile. In a tournament, Colin Montgomerie's looks are known to kill.
As it was, I - the unfortunate recipient of the phone call - and around 30 other Monty fans were enjoying an audience with one of the world's best golfers.
Here on his home patch, at his Colin Montgomerie Links Golf Academy in windswept Turnberry, Monty was in relaxed, good humour. Laughing off the interruption, he returned swiftly to entertaining the paying customers with his tales from more than two decades on the golf tour and suggestions on how to hit the ball like a professional.
Turnberry enjoys arguably the best location of all Scotland's five-star hotels because of the views it commands out over the Ayrshire coastline to the unmistakable granite dome of Ailsa Craig.
But life here is still largely built around the pursuit of golf. The Audience with Monty, which includes 90 minutes of tips and stories, plus a competition with prizes on the resort's challenging nine-hole Arran course, is just one of the experiences on offer. Serious golfers can also go for the Full Monty, three hours of instruction from the Turnberry professionals, nine holes of golf with an instructor in tow and unlimited access to the practice area.
But individual sessions to sharpen up your game can also be booked, and with Turnberry's famous bunkers in mind, I took a lesson in how to get out of some of the fiercest sand traps in the world.
Of course, Turnberry doesn't have to be all golf. There is a range of country sports to enjoy, including archery and falconry, and a spa to relax in before pre-dinner drinks in the main bar. Best value in the restaurant is the £49 'cuisine creative' menu that stretches the waistband at six courses and displays real flair in the kitchen.
How do you walk that lot off? More golf, of course.
Jeremy Watson FACT FILE: GOLF An Audience with Monty costs in the region of £99. Contact Chris Brown on 01655 334190 or e-mail
turnberry@westin.com for information. The Full Monty, which includes a clubhouse lunch, costs £299; Wee Monty (reduced time, for beginners) costs £150. Overnight accomodation at Turnberry (01655 331000) costs from £159 per room, including breakfast.
Mountain biking
OKAY, so a weekend mountain biking in Peebles is not quite two weeks on Necker Island with Brad Pitt as your personal tanning butler, but at least you'll avoid all those interminable "are we there yet?" interrogations.
Just an hour's drive from Edinburgh and we were deep in Borders countryside: the River Tweed bubbling past on our right; rolling, deeply forested hills rising majestically to our left. Home for the weekend was the Macdonald Cardrona Hotel, complete with championship golf course and driving range (for him), 18m swimming pool (for them) and luxury spa (for me, on the off-chance I might get five minutes to myself).
But the main attraction was Glentress Forest, the mountain-biking mecca that boasts everything from blue routes for beginners to black routes for bikers with a death wish, plus skills loops to perfect your braking and handling.
First stop on Friday was a dip in the pool to work up an appetite for dinner, followed by an early night.
We were picked up bright and early the following morning by Iain Withers of adventure company MB7. He was armed with well-equipped mountain bikes and the all-important helmets (plus a few energy bars in case we started to flag) to put us through our paces.
Our route was individually tailored to our abilities: manageable enough to allow the unfittest to feel slightly heroic, but challenging enough to still be fun for the thrill-seekers in the family.
I won't pretend it wasn't tough: once or twice I had to get off the bike and walk, legs shaking and heart pumping with the effort of the climb.
There were plenty of thrills, only one almost-spill and we ended the day with massive grins. Then, while the adults eased their ageing, saddle-sore muscles with a relaxing massage and a long stay in the steam room, the youths splashed out any remaining energy in the pool.
Heading home the next day, feeling stiff but ever so self-righteous, we reflected: who needs Space Mountain when we have the real thing on our doorstep?
Ruth Walker FACT FILE: BIKING The Macdonald Cardrona Hotel Bike and Bliss package costs £225 per person based on two people sharing a classic twin or double room. The price includes two nights' dinner, bed and breakfast, a full day with an MB7 guide in Glentress Forest, massage and full use of the leisure facilities. For details call 0870 194 2114 or visit
www.macdonaldhotels.co.uk/cardrona.
A half-day's mountain biking with MB7 costs £80 for up to six people. Call 08706 093 096 or visit
www.mb7.com.
Tennis
IT'S AMAZING how useful a plastic bucket chair can be, even on a tennis court. With my left hand firmly gripping the top of the chair behind my back, my right arm flowed up, my racquet connecting perfectly with the speeding projectile.
I held the pose, as I had been instructed to do, with Bruce electing to let the ball pass him by. "Attaboy, Jeremy," he cried. "Federer would have been proud of that one!"
A backhand requires balance, precision and control - rather than my usual flail - and if a chair was going to help me achieve that, then so be it. The only problem came when trying to play the shot without the chair, but dragging it about the court was a no-no.
I've always wanted to play better tennis, particularly in warm surroundings. So I enrolled on the Academy tennis course at Mark Warner's San Agostino resort, in the olive-growing region of Kalamata, in Greece's western Peloponnese. Better tennis was not a certainty but warmth was guaranteed.
The tennis school takes players of all abilities, with courses and lessons tailored to suit. It has an intensive five-day course of 90 minutes' instruction each morning for those who know the basics but want to improve their game. You also get 45 minutes of private tuition as an add-on. Of course, if the daily class isn't enough, there is always the social tennis arranged every afternoon.
The resort is set in a magnificent bay, with a long stretch of pristine sand fronting the apartments and villas that make up the Mark Warner community. It's a rugged coastline in these parts, with spectacular mountains rising all around, and both Sparta and Olympus are just day trips away.
My family of non-tennis players took advantage of the free watersports tuition and, after grinding it out on court, it was a pleasure to sit with a cool beer at the beach-side bar and watch them. If you want more sport, water polo, aqua aerobics, scuba diving, football, volleyball and table tennis are also on offer, along with an open-air pilates area for tennis-fatigued muscles.
Federer has no reason to be worried just yet, but my game will have a new flourish thanks to Bruce's opening-day wisdom. "Tennis is a game for posers," he told us. "Even if the shot goes out, you still want to look good."
Jeremy Watson FACT FILE: TENNIS A week at Mark Warner's San Agostino resort in September for a family of four cost £1,960, including flights from Gatwick, transfer to resort, accommodation, meals with wine, windsurfing, sailing, tennis and aerobics. Childcare is included in the price of a holiday for the over-twos. Flight supplements from Manchester were £35. The Academy tennis course cost £100. High-season prices rise to around £3,338.
For next year's prices, call 0870 770 4227 or visit
www.markwarner.co.uk.
