There’s regularly someplace our team’ve longed to tee it up, a must-play program our team’re determined to example however have actually certainly never fairly procured it performed.
Let’s certainly not obtain silly today. Our company can easily all state Augusta National or even Marble Seashore. Perhaps you will arrive eventually, however our team would like to take on the golf links along with some regional market value, someplace you can affix to a golf travel along with your family and friends.
You might possess actually checked off the Old Course, Royal Birkdale or even Royal County Down, therefore where is actually the second best location that inhabits a place in your aspirations?
Even for such a well-travelled team as the one NCG has actually set up beneath, our team still would like to connect with all edges of the golf garden as you carry out. So our team received our scalps all together as well as picked which training programs our team would certainly adore to take on following that our team haven’t actually…
I regularly made use of to state the Old Training course however I dealt with to beat that off in 2021 as well as on my special day also! That was actually fairly a time.
So with the St Andrews itch well and firmly scratched I’m going to go to the opposite end of the country and reveal my deep yearning to play Sunningdale Old and New.
I might need a mortgage to tick them both off on the same day but what is money? Life’s all about experiences, isn’t it?
It would have to be when the heather’s out as there is just something about the colours in that Berkshire setting that are just magnificent.
As our GB&I Top 100s say, it’s “surely the prettiest heathland in the world”. Firm and springy turf, generous fairways on the Old and amazing greens, what’s not to love?
I’m starting the car right now.
Sticking to my area of speciality, the British Isles, I have recently ticked off first visits to the likes of St Patrick’s Links at Rosapenna, the JCB Club, Narin & Portnoo (in its current form) and North West.
I completely fell for St Patrick’s Links and can’t wait to return. So that that leaves, at the very top of my list, and indeed the only GB&I NCG Top 100s course that I have yet to play, Ardfin, on Jura. The closest I have come to date is to sail past it on a ferry, close enough to pick out individual fairways. What anguish.
Close behind it is Royal Birkdale, following the extensive changes made over the course of last winter and the spring. And then there would have to be a respectful nod to Beaverbrook, Royal Wimbledon, Royal Household, Wentworth’s Edinburgh course, Reay, Durness, and Hadley Wood.
I have still not managed to play North Wales or Prestatyn either, so there are two more. And I have been intending to visit Pleasington for most of 2024 and still not done so. Flempton, in Suffolk, also continues to elude me. So do Rochester & Cobham. How’s that for a bucket list?
Now, where did I forget? That’s right – Spey Bay, on the Moray Firth, where my friend and architect Sam Cooper is currently building a reversible course – as in, you will be able to play it backwards and forwards. Now Sam is very clever, but that still has to be a head-scratching challenge. I can’t wait to see it.
I am unfortunately nowhere near as well travelled as Dan and Steve, who are both probably near the 1000 golf course mark of their portfolio. I will try and arrange my bucket list regionally.
The Old Course at St Andrews, North Berwick and Muirfield all occupy my dreams in Scotland. Coming down the UK, although I live fairly close, I still haven’t played Birkdale, Hillside or Formby. On the other side of the country, I’ve heard Seaton Carew is brilliant.
Like Steve, I would really like to play Sunningdale Old. It just looks like pure magic. I could sit and talk about golf in Ireland all day, I would love to play at Royal Portrush, Waterville and Tralee, while Dan has definitely sold St Patricks Links at Rosapenna to me.
Although we want to keep this local or at least a short plane journey/long drive away, I can’t help but think of foreign lands. I’ve written a little about top golf courses not being used enough on professional tours recently, along with one of all of them being Royal Melbourne.
While the previous courses I’ve stated are a little more realistic to reach, Royal Melbourne would certainly be actually the supreme desire.
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