DON'T be alarmed if you see someone driving your car or walking off with your clubs at Celtic Manor.

That's the way it works at a golf resort that is preparing to host the Ryder Cup.

This is luxury golf, the kind that makes you feel like king for the day even if you don't rule on the fairways.

And if you have played at one of Celtic Manor's two other courses, The Montgomerie or Roman Road, don't assume you've been there and done that.

The Twenty Ten course, built specifically to host the Ryder Cup in two years' time — hence the name — is on a whole different level from its relatively poor relations on the other side of the road.

Long before you land in sand or sink in the drink — and you will — comes the first obstacle, the electric gate halfway down the course's front drive.

Surprisingly enough, the steel railings are not only there to keep out the riff-raff — and if they are they aren't doing their job, seeing as we got in.

The real reason for the gates, where you have to stop the car and buzz the intercom, is to give those in the clubhouse notice that you are on the way.

It gives them a chance, you see, to get someone out front ready to grab your sticks and park your motor.

Meantime, you can have a coffee in the bar overlooking the glorious 18th hole, or head for the oak-panelled locker rooms where Tiger Woods and company will change their shoes two Septembers from now.

Thanks to the past Ryder Cup pictures all over the walls, we had barely got round to tying our laces by the time the Mercedes had arrived to take us from the pro's shop to the new practice ground.

Needless to say, there were no tokens required here, just a pyramid of balls in each bay waiting to be launched.

Then came another warm welcome, this time from the man in the starter's hut, and we were standing over opening tee shots at a course designed to challenge the best golfers on the planet.

Thankfully, given that we are not the best golfers in our postcode, we were invited to play off the yellow tees rather than the blues.

That meant a 411-yard par four rather than a 465-yarder to start off with. More significantly, it meant a total yardage of 6,570 rather than 7,493.

And that was quite enough for us.

For the Twenty Ten, as you would expect, offers a mighty test of golf.

The rough is just that, the bunkers are deep and the water is abundant.

There is so much of the wet stuff, in fact, that at times you wouldn't be surprised to spot someone smashing a champagne bottle over a ship.

For us, the par 4 sixth, where a lake stretches down the right from tee to green, was a particularly soggy affair.

''Don't go right,'' you tell yourself. Then you go right.

In truth, whoever it is who collects lake balls at Celtic Manor must have done well out of us.

But even the continual splashes heard in our two-ball could not take away from the thrill of playing this Welsh sporting gem, which is the first course to be purpose-built for Ryder Cup duty.

There are some fabulous holes, particularly in a closing stretch which promises much for those enjoying the drama if Europe and the Americans are standing to toe to toe come the Sunday singles in 2010.

By next Monday morning, Celtic Manor's Twenty Ten course will be the next Ryder Cup venue.

And we will be counting down the days.