“There is an elegance to Swinley Forest that is both understated and beguiling”

It’s an old clubhouse question, a cliche really, but it shuts most people up for a few minutes while they carefully consider their answer. The question, of course, is: if you could only play one course for the rest of your life, what would it be?

Answers are as varied as they are to the other showstopper query, the one that wonders who you would like to be going home to if you weren’t going home to your present wife/ husband/partner. The difference is the answer to this question must never be revealed outside the small group considering it. Anyway, back to the golf course poser.

Like most of us, I have a handful of places I especially love, courses that offer a challenge that is embraced by beauty. One of these is Swinley Forest and if Swinley was indeed my only golfing destination then I would be the right side of content. It’s more than 30 years now since I first played Swinley and I return each year as a member of a small society of like-minded golfers who appreciate the nuance and beauty, occasionally the eccentricity and certainly the charm of certain clubs in what we still quaintly call the Home Counties.

Some of you will have heard of Swinley, most of you won’t. How could you – there is no attempt at publicity. Swinley is old school in the very best sense of that often abused description. Classy and quietly exclusive, certainly, but not in the slightest bit snobby, this place has moved gently with the times.

No one is going to ask you to tuck your shirt in and no one is going to ask you for your handicap. Indeed, handicaps are quietly frowned upon, as is anything approaching serious competition. Swinley has always focused on the relaxed enjoyment of the game. There is an elegance to the club’s philosophy that is both understated and beguiling.

Old money created the course and club more than 100 years ago, but it took the genius of designer Harry Colt to build the living heart of this place. I love Colt courses; love his ability to offer narrative, charm and challenge in equal parts. He remains, for me, the most subtle designer the old game has ever embraced. He called Swinley his “least bad course”. I call it brilliant. Colt liked the joint so much he became secretary for a while. If you ever get the chance to visit, please do. I promise you won’t regret it.

When I first played there, I paused as I entered the comfy clubhouse to glance at a noticeboard that had a rather scruffy sheet of paper with the typewritten names of members placed in the order of perceived importance. First up was HRH The Duke of Edinburgh, second was HRH the Duke of York, third – and the killer – was the Nawab of Pataudi. I didn’t read on. I couldn’t. I was quietly laughing too much. There is no longer a list of members to peruse, but I doubt there are many more than 100 of them anyway, a number that makes even Augusta National seem rather oversubscribed by comparison. I’ve never seen more than 20 cars parked there.

There weren’t many people at the year’s first Major, either, but the USPGA still proved a crowd pleaser, with Collin Morikawa celebrating his first full year out of college by taking the big prize. While Rory Mcilroy and others bemoan the loss of adrenalin enjoyed when encouraged by packed galleries, Morikawa, clearly more recently accustomed to quietly competitive rounds, slipped back into student mode to enhance his credentials as a truly outstanding young golfer.

Last month, I worried a little about Bryson Dechambeau’s weight and muscle gain and its impact on his own health, as well as the probability of his relative success tempting other young men to follow the same obsessive path towards ‘gorilla golf’. Turns out I needn’t have bothered. Morikawa is 5ft 9ins and a pint of lager over 11st. He is more National Hunt jockey than gorilla and that, in my house anyway, is good news.