From here to the red flag fluttering in the scrub it is only 175m – a bit longer than a football pitch. But between the tee by my dusty feet and the hole hiding below the flag there are potentially snakes, scorpions and poisonous spiders – not to mention the certainty of ruts and holes and natural sand bars, eucalyptus trees and piles of logs.
Just surviving the Skylab hole (par 3) on the Nullarbor Links golf course in remote Western Australia sounds like a feat to put any of Tiger Woods' achievements in the shade. Getting the ball into the hole in three shots is as likely as him turning up for a round out here in the Aussie outback.
The Nullarbor Links, which opened last month, may not have the best-kept fairways in the world, but it can claim to be the world's longest course – beginning in Kalgoorlie, a gold-mining town in Western Australia and ending 860 miles to the east, at the coastal town of Ceduna, South Australia. You can play it in either direction.
The course was the brainchild of a group of roadhouses that dot the Eyre Highway, the road that stretches across the Nullarbor Plain. Seven of the holes are in existing courses, with the other 11 newly built at the roadhouses along the way. After each hole, players put their clubs back in the car and drive for what could be several hours to the next tee.
"We wanted a way to get people to slow down and enjoy the drive, rather then belt across the Nullarbor," says one of the founders, Alf Caputo. "Already truckers, families and other people making the big drive are taking their clubs and playing the course."
Tiger may not be here but two blokes called Bruce and Ralph are. They're heading home to Perth from Adelaide and, in the hope of gleaning some local knowledge (and letting them either scare away, or serve as prime target for the poisonous nasties out there), we urge them to go first.
"If the first hit's no good, you're buggered," claims Bruce, pulling a ball from a cloth sack. It's an old pillow case. In his hand is one of the three clubs he and his mate Ralph bought from a municipal dump in South Australia for a total of AU$6 (£3). "Unless it gets on the green [some green-painted fake grass] first shot, you might as well just give up."
Bruce looks at the arsenal of hi-tech clubs we have borrowed for our golf drive across Oz, and at the poncy garb one of my travelling companions is wearing. Then he mutters something about Priscilla, Queen of the Desert.
There's a tour company offering a week's golf trip by bus across the empty quarter of South and Western Australia, but most players have their own transport. And if you hire a car, as we have and as I'd recommend anyone to do, you can do a one-way drop-off – or there is even the potential for sticking it on the Indian Pacific train for the return leg.
Play the course and you inevitably end up seeing far more of the area than just tees, greens and tarmac. After teeing off at Kalgoorlie, we stop to look down into the Super Pit gold mine, the largest of its kind in the country. Then, down the road at Norseman, we try land yachting on the dry salt pans. Across the border in South Australia, there's whale watching where the Nullarbor Plain meets the Southern Ocean, and surfing at Cactus, one of the world's most renowned breaks, close by the hole called Windmills at Penong.
"On a bad day for surfing, a lot of the local surfers can be found on the course," says Andrew, a local photographer and surfer.
Nullarbor means "no tree" in Latin, but there's only one section of the highway, and therefore the golf course, that is treeless – at Nullarbor itself, a roadhouse just into South Australia.
Having no trees to hit on the Dingo's Den hole here counts for little. Nature has found other ways to make the hole hell. Wombat holes pepper the already pockmarked and grass-free "fairway". Dingoes, as per the name, roam the rough.
Teeing off into the vast nothingness of the Nullarbor, I quickly come across the hole's greatest challenge. As my ball flies through the outback sky, a crow lifts off from a post halfway down the fairway. I fear for a mid-air collision, only for my fear to turn to anger, as the bird tracks the ball to land, swoops down and pinches it.
"Ah yes, the crows. You should bring a scarecrow with you to play Dingo's Den," says Adam Seeby, the roadhouse manager. "Remember – this is the outback, not St Andrews."
To watch a video of Jeremy and friends on the course, see tinyurl.com/nullarbor
Essentials
For details on Nullarbor Links, visit nullarborlinks.com. To play, you need to buy a scorecard at the visitor information centres in Kalgoorlie or Ceduna for AU$50 (£28); clubs are available to hire at each hole. Qantas (qantas.com) flies from London to Perth from £584. For further information on holidays in Australia, see australia.com; southaustralia.com; and westernaustralia.com.