The Oxfordshire
Many grand new courses opened in the UK in the 1990s, including this expansive layout near Thame, which was Rees Jones’ first course design project in Europe.
This is a big golf course, often exposed to the elements, that relies on four lakes and 135 often-sizable bunkers to both enhance the aesthetics and define the strategic test and challenge.
There is visual drama at every turn on what is essentially a stadium course, with tournament play envisaged from the outset.
History
The course was originally Japaneseowned and built, opening for play in 1993 and hosting the 1995 Andersen Consulting World Championship of Golf, the forerunner to today’s WGC Dell Technologies Match Play Championship. Barry Lane won that
event, while Laura Davies won both Ladies’ English Opens staged here in 1995 and 1996. The latter year also saw the first of four consecutive Benson and Hedges International Opens, with Stephen Ames, Bernhard Langer, Darren Clarke and Colin Montgomerie the four champions.
In 2002, the club was sold to the Leaderboard Group, which also owns Dale Hill in Sussex and Sandford Springs in Hampshire. A 50-bedroom, four-star hotel was added to the facilities in 2010.
Signature holes
For most, there’s little debate as to what the signature hole is – the par-5 17th christened ‘ Treble Chance’, which can stretch to over 600 yards and horseshoes around a lake.
The name is fitting, for there are three ways to tackle the hole: play relatively safely around the lake; venture across the lake on your second shot to a smaller strip of fairway on the left; or gamble everything and take the green on in two. There is a fourth, less desirable way too, pioneered by Padraig Harrington in the 1996 B&H. The Irishman racked up a 13 on the hole after what can only be described as a Tin Cup-esque moment.
The 17th may play the starring role, but with water in play on half a dozen more holes, it doesn’t have it all its own way. You’ll remember the short par-4 8th, with its island green jutting out into the largest lake, and the par-3 13th, particularly if the pin is in its fiendish back-left spot.