Swingalot
Challenge Tour Pro
As the title suggests, I had the great fortune to play on this iconic course earlier in the Year and decided to give my thoughts on the day, course and whole experience.
The first thing that struck me as I drove down the narrow, short approach road to the clubhouse was how understated the whole thing was. There was no 'meet and greet' man to meet you at the entrance or a flash modern lit road with a huge sign at the entrance, but more a gentle drive past a small sign down into a tiny car park area. As I wondered across from the car park the clubhouse building was in excellent condition and looked of course like an old building, but again I was surpised at the scale of it. It was no bigger than any 'average' golf clubhouse! After spending a short time checking out the well stocked golf shop and being served by the most well spoken staff member I have ever come across we wandered across for breakfast in the clubhouse. Walking through the doors you started to get a real feel for the history of the place, with the great names up on the hounour boards and some really great pictures and paintings of recent (and not for recent) Open championships.
After a very decent buffet breakfast (4 sausages was a little excessive, but I had a long walk ahead of me) we got changed and made our way towards the 1st tee. We were playing as 2 x 4 balls and as we walked across some 20 minutes before our tee time it was then that it struck us that we were the only golfers at the golf course. In fact, as it transpired, we were the only golfers to play the course all day! Not only was I on a freebie round at the home of 14 Open Championships, but the guy footing the bill had hired out the whole golf course! In fact, the light rain and the members reluctance to play on Tuesday mornings were the reason we had the course to ourself, but I like to convince myself that the former was true.
Onto the 1st tee and my first dissapoiintment, no starter and a pretty undramaitc 1st hole. A faily straight par 4 ahead of us, into the rain. Anyway off we went and very soon the course started to make an impact (forgot to say, this was only my 2nd ever round on a Links course!!). The greens and course were in fantasitic condition and pretty soon I was learning the hard way all about links golf. I hit the green in 2 on the 2nd hole and watched as it came to settle 4ft from the hole, only then to start moving and moving and moving and moving until it had rolled off the green, down a slope and around 40 yards from the hole. Remind me what people like about links golf?!
In all seriousness, it was great fun and a real joy to be out on such a course. My highlight holes were all of the par 3's, the par 5's and perhaps my fav hole was the dogleg 5th, which I walked off with a little birdie. For those who have never played a links course, the biggest thing I noticed was despite what you see on the TV and even from watching the Open from the crowd, you really don't appreciate how much contour change there is on the fairways and greens until your actually trying to steer that little white dot around the place. The greens were all over the place and you very rarely get a flat lie on the fairways.
If I was to be really picky about the course, the dissapointing holes were the first and last, and in fact the last was propably the biggest dissapointment. Very straight and relatively simple par 4, with no dramatic finish and in fact finishing someway from the clubhouse itself (I'm sure it is a little different with 10000 fans packed into temporary stands, but all we had as interested oberservers were seagulls).
How did I play, well not bad at all actually. Despite it being wet for the first 9 holes we did not have too much wind and I walked away with 33 points which I was chuffed with. Yes a couple of dings, but also a birdie and a handfull of pars and may I add we did go off the white tees (the champsionship tees were a little bit out of our league!!!)
Overall, a great experience. You can smell the history of the place and I felt very fortunate to be playing the course. The staff in the clubhouse, bar, shop and changing rooms were all polite and helpfull but without being too OTT and it was a lovely feeling to 'tick the course off the list'.
The first thing that struck me as I drove down the narrow, short approach road to the clubhouse was how understated the whole thing was. There was no 'meet and greet' man to meet you at the entrance or a flash modern lit road with a huge sign at the entrance, but more a gentle drive past a small sign down into a tiny car park area. As I wondered across from the car park the clubhouse building was in excellent condition and looked of course like an old building, but again I was surpised at the scale of it. It was no bigger than any 'average' golf clubhouse! After spending a short time checking out the well stocked golf shop and being served by the most well spoken staff member I have ever come across we wandered across for breakfast in the clubhouse. Walking through the doors you started to get a real feel for the history of the place, with the great names up on the hounour boards and some really great pictures and paintings of recent (and not for recent) Open championships.
After a very decent buffet breakfast (4 sausages was a little excessive, but I had a long walk ahead of me) we got changed and made our way towards the 1st tee. We were playing as 2 x 4 balls and as we walked across some 20 minutes before our tee time it was then that it struck us that we were the only golfers at the golf course. In fact, as it transpired, we were the only golfers to play the course all day! Not only was I on a freebie round at the home of 14 Open Championships, but the guy footing the bill had hired out the whole golf course! In fact, the light rain and the members reluctance to play on Tuesday mornings were the reason we had the course to ourself, but I like to convince myself that the former was true.
Onto the 1st tee and my first dissapoiintment, no starter and a pretty undramaitc 1st hole. A faily straight par 4 ahead of us, into the rain. Anyway off we went and very soon the course started to make an impact (forgot to say, this was only my 2nd ever round on a Links course!!). The greens and course were in fantasitic condition and pretty soon I was learning the hard way all about links golf. I hit the green in 2 on the 2nd hole and watched as it came to settle 4ft from the hole, only then to start moving and moving and moving and moving until it had rolled off the green, down a slope and around 40 yards from the hole. Remind me what people like about links golf?!
In all seriousness, it was great fun and a real joy to be out on such a course. My highlight holes were all of the par 3's, the par 5's and perhaps my fav hole was the dogleg 5th, which I walked off with a little birdie. For those who have never played a links course, the biggest thing I noticed was despite what you see on the TV and even from watching the Open from the crowd, you really don't appreciate how much contour change there is on the fairways and greens until your actually trying to steer that little white dot around the place. The greens were all over the place and you very rarely get a flat lie on the fairways.
If I was to be really picky about the course, the dissapointing holes were the first and last, and in fact the last was propably the biggest dissapointment. Very straight and relatively simple par 4, with no dramatic finish and in fact finishing someway from the clubhouse itself (I'm sure it is a little different with 10000 fans packed into temporary stands, but all we had as interested oberservers were seagulls).
How did I play, well not bad at all actually. Despite it being wet for the first 9 holes we did not have too much wind and I walked away with 33 points which I was chuffed with. Yes a couple of dings, but also a birdie and a handfull of pars and may I add we did go off the white tees (the champsionship tees were a little bit out of our league!!!)
Overall, a great experience. You can smell the history of the place and I felt very fortunate to be playing the course. The staff in the clubhouse, bar, shop and changing rooms were all polite and helpfull but without being too OTT and it was a lovely feeling to 'tick the course off the list'.
