BOOK: Lofted, Remarkable & far-flung adventures for the modern golfer, by William Watt

This gorgeous coffee new table book takes readers on a journey of discovery with stunning photography and words featuring golf experiences around the globe.

Edited by photojournalist William Watt, with chapters and contributions by Dave Carswell, Jane Knight, Cameron Hassard and others, it explores courses ranging from the famous and familiar to remote and little-known.

But it's more than just a visual feast. Melbourne-based Watt, founder of Caddie Magazine, is both a player and student of the sport. The happy result of this is that Lofted is filled with anecdotes and stories, and ranges over topics from the design of the bunkers and dog-legged tees to the art of mindfulness in the great outdoors.

But it's the sheer variety of places that gets the wanderlust flowing.

Take the course at Pokhara, Nepal, described in a chapter tilted "Golf on Top of the World", Carswell tells of its challenges, including a drive off the third tee that "shoots up into the Annapurna ranges before dropping for over 10 seconds of hang time to a narrow fairway 200 feet below",

In "Languid in Langkawi", Watt tells of his tropical idyll on the Ernie Els-designed course of Teluk Datai, one of three glorious courses on the Malaysian island. You get a sense of it when he writes of the mountainside 10th hole: "Looking up at the clouds swirling around the nearby peaks and hearing the deep hum of the rainforest, at times it's hard to concentrate on the hole at hand."

In "Links Among the Vines", he travels to France for a round at the Grand Saint-Emilionnaise Golf Club in the Bordeaux region. Located just outside the UNESCO World Heritage-listed village of Saint-Emilion, with its cobblestone streets and rural charm, it includes a hole featuring a view of a 16th-century church, 'deliberately carved out through clever tree removal, creating a distinct memory for the hole as well as a target for the approach shot".

Plus there are classic courses in the remote islands of Scotland's Outer Hebrides; Norway's Lofoten Islands in the land of the Northern Lights; Bagan, Myanmar, with its hundreds of pagodas and more.

There are even courses dared only by the bravest, such as Kabul Golf Club, in Afghanistan, described by warartist Andrew Quilty in "Golf in a War Zone" and where sheep wer used as mine-detonators. Also memorable is a one-hole, two-man, one-dog adventure across Mongolia.

Closer to home, there is a section on the renowned Sandbelt in Melbourne, where Watt is based. A chapter by Cameron Hassard explores the allure and history of this unique vein of sandy loam subsoil that hosts no fewer than eight championship courses and 17 additional public and private courses.

Or join in a visit to windswept King Island in Bass Strait, or the stunning, demanding Tom Doaks-designed Cape Kidnappers on New Zealand's North Island, where " it's impossible to get grumpy - and a quick glance at the scenery will have lost balls soon forgotten"

Even if you've never hit a golf ball in pleasure or anger, Lofted is wonderful armchair odyssey.

Lofted: Remarkable & far-flung adventures for the modern golfer, William Watt (Hardie Grant), RRP $45.