TRADITONALLY, it wouldn’t go down too well if you decided to head down to your local club and use your foot, rather than your driver, to smash balls down the fairway.

Regardless, I took the opportunity to live out that fantasy at Basset Down Golf Course – and I wasn’t even turfed out for doing it.

Myself and colleague Darren Jackson got the chance to give Basset Down’s football golf course a try, turning up believing that kicking footballs into large holes would be a walk in the park.

The rules for football golf are simple – it’s golf, played with footballs – but as I attempted to channel my inner David Beckham and send looping drives into the sky with the hope of landing gently on the course’s 12 greens, I quickly realised that the whole gig was a little bit harder than it looked.

Frustratingly for me, display advertising manager Darren, who has proved himself something of a dab hand at kicking competitions in the past, summoned up a lot more accuracy than I did – just like in regular golf, if you’re going to win a game, it helps to not spend most of your time hacking your ball out of the tall grass.

Our round, with a group of just two players, took around an hour to complete and I can only imagine how much fun it would be to tackle Basset Down with a larger group of mates.

The course is also open to youngsters and the club offer a host of party options for budding Rory McIlroys – Rory McIlroys with more than a spot of Cristiano Ronaldo thrown in, of course.

Basset Down’s football golf course is open every day from 9am until dusk and is set to run until October. For more information, visit swindonfamilygolf.com or call 01793 812336.