2018: the year we played 41 courses across 14 countries

We ended 2018 having sent clients to 14 countries, played 41 courses I hadn't previously visited, and expanded the team for the first time since we started. Here's what actually happened.

January–March: the India Ocean quarter. February in Mauritius at Constance Belle Mare — this was our sixth year running this itinerary and the first time we had a full 14 days from the same golf society. The Irish group who rang me at Faro airport in 2013 saying they'd be back were back, and brought three others. The Links course in peak February sunshine remains, in my opinion, the best resort golf experience in the world at that price point.

April–June: the Europe build-up. Portugal in April and May absorbs more of our client volume than any other period. We ran nine separate Algarve departures between April and June 2018, ranging from a couple on their first golf holiday abroad to a 24-person society that required three separate tee times and two adjacent hotel rooms for a scoreboard. Every one of them came back. Seven of the nine are repeat clients.

July: Japan, first time. I flew to Tokyo and Kyoto specifically to assess whether we could run a credible itinerary there. Four days. Kawana Hotel, Hirono, Gotemba. I came back to Edinburgh and booked flights back immediately. We ran our first Japan itinerary in October 2018. The three clients who went were a low-handicap pair from Surrey and a solo golfer from Edinburgh who had been asking me for two years when we were going to do Japan. The Edinburgh client called me from the onsen bath at Kawana at what was 6pm Japan time, 10am UK time, and said four words: 'Book me back immediately.' We did.

August–October: Kenya. We added Kenya formally to our portfolio this year after running a one-off test trip in 2017. The Nairobi golf plus Masai Mara structure works precisely as well as I hoped. A corporate client used it for six guests in September and the feedback from the company's most important client — a man who had been on every luxury golf trip his company had run for fifteen years — was that it was the best trip he'd ever been taken on. That is the kind of feedback that builds an itinerary's position in the portfolio permanently.

What 2018 taught us: the trip that surprises people the most is always the one they resisted longest. Japan. Kenya. Vietnam, which we started scoping this year. Every golfer who goes somewhere they initially thought was 'a bit far' comes back as an advocate for the distance.