Crowborough Beacon - Course Review

[User20205]

I had the pleasure of playing Crowborough Beacon yesterday afternoon. I believe some of the guys on here are/were members. I have been looking forward to it for a couple of weeks after reading some excellent reviews on UK golf guide. It didn’t disappoint.

To those that don’t know, it is a really traditional English home counties golf club, but it manages to maintain this without feeling at all stuffy. The club house has a relaxed old world charm and reminded me of Royal North Devon in that respect. The members we met were welcoming and rightly proud of their course.

The course isn’t long, we played off the yellows and it’s about 6000 yards. This didn’t detract from the experience.

It’s not a course where you can pull out the driver on every par 4/5. The nature of the elevation changes, the set up of the dog legs and the proximity of trees & heather mean that you have to plot your way around. This suited me quite well since me and my driver have had a falling out, he is in the bag but we aren’t speaking!

The pick of the holes for me were; SI 1, 2nd Hole Par 4, 428 off the yellow tee. It’s a down hill dogleg right from an elevated tee with a gorse/heather filled gully in front & to the right of the green. This really puts a premium on the second shot with what is probably with a long iron.

The 6th is a 167 yard par 3 over a huge gorse/bracken filled crevasse, and the 12th par 4, 400 yards, SI 2, asks questions off the tee, with another area of gorse/bracken around the potential landing area.

I’m sure it is a difficult proposition off the whites, which adds 300 yards or so onto the total yardage. We found it a fair test, that if the ball was kept on the fairway you have got a decent chance of scoring well.

I really enjoyed the round, at £30 it is a bit of a bargain, and I’m really looking forward to playing again.

 

[Smiffy]

I was a member there for some years, up until 2000. Really regret leaving as I loved the course, but a change in my family circumstances (divorce) saw me moving away from the area, making it unrealistic to travel to the course regularly.
Centenary year was 1995 and the course was most probably in it's best ever condtiion around that time.
Unfortunately, it suffered for quite a few years after that due to bad greenkeeping practices and quite a few of the members left because of it.
Haven't played there for a while but understand it's getting back to it's former condition.

 

[Leftie]

Totally agree. Great course.

You were lucky if you held some fairways. Because they don't have fairway watering some of the the sloping fairways are difficult to hold.

As the members there will freely admit, their handicaps "travel well". Our Vets have a home and away match every year with a trophy at stake for overall winners. Needless to say, I don't think that we have ever won it.

 

[Snelly]

Another vote from me for Crowborough Beacon. An excellent course and yes, I agree the 2nd and 12th are excellent holes. I think the 18th is brilliant too.

You always get a great welcome and when our society visits, the Captain always makes a point of turning up to welcome everyone which is a very nice touch.

Good food, awesome views and a really nice course mean it is a venue I always look forward to playing. And I have never seen it in anything other than excellent condition over the past 7 or 8 years that I have played there.

I would rank it as a top 5 course in Sussex in fact behind West Sussex and Rye and on a level with Goodwood and Royal Ashdown.

I won our event last September there too which always helps!

Great course - highly recommended.