I had an invite to play the newly refurbished Chart Hills course in Kent today.
The owners (from Princes ) have spent bundles of money on a full refurb of the course, sorted out the pro shop and made the spike bar and other facilities a place you'd like to go to. The course is 20 minutes away for me so I've played it a number of times over the years, but it had a deserved reputation for getting really boggy in the winter and the previous owner let it go to pot before putting it up for sale.
So today was a first opportunity to see what has changed and was it good? The weather was glorious with a breeze but I played pretty crap and lost several balls. The good news is that they've done precious little to change the Faldo original layout, but the course, in all its glory on a late summer/early autumn day was magnificent. The money spent, in large part, was clearly spent underground and, when I managed to take a divot, there's clearly lots of sand under the fairway grass which I'm sure will make winter golf a more pleasing occasion.
The only problem I found was that almost any shot missing the fairway was likely to be lost - I might need to restock balls for H4H !
The guest of a member rate was not too bad at £60, but I'd probably baulk at the visitors rate of £100 and the place was by no means busy.
Certainly it a good test and quite beautiful on a fine sunny day.
The owners (from Princes ) have spent bundles of money on a full refurb of the course, sorted out the pro shop and made the spike bar and other facilities a place you'd like to go to. The course is 20 minutes away for me so I've played it a number of times over the years, but it had a deserved reputation for getting really boggy in the winter and the previous owner let it go to pot before putting it up for sale.
So today was a first opportunity to see what has changed and was it good? The weather was glorious with a breeze but I played pretty crap and lost several balls. The good news is that they've done precious little to change the Faldo original layout, but the course, in all its glory on a late summer/early autumn day was magnificent. The money spent, in large part, was clearly spent underground and, when I managed to take a divot, there's clearly lots of sand under the fairway grass which I'm sure will make winter golf a more pleasing occasion.
The only problem I found was that almost any shot missing the fairway was likely to be lost - I might need to restock balls for H4H !
The guest of a member rate was not too bad at £60, but I'd probably baulk at the visitors rate of £100 and the place was by no means busy.
Certainly it a good test and quite beautiful on a fine sunny day.
