UNSUNG REGIONS
Chris Bertram highlights four outstanding English golf breaks that are lower profile, but offer sensational quality, exceptional character and seriously good value for money
As a golf break destination, England is seriously under-appreciated when compared with Ireland and Scotland. And when England is considered for a golfing getaway, it’s always Surrey, Southport, Kent, and its south-west that get highlighted.
They are all wonderful options, of course, but while the quartet I focus on below lack any standout superstars, I think they are the equal in many respects and surpass them in terms of value for money.
CUMBRIA
Silloth is a World Top 100 course, so needs much less introduction. It’s a links that has everything that’s good about the game and is also astonishingly well priced.
Seascale, just along the west Cumbrian coast, has been a fixture in our England and GB&I Fun rankings for several years. It’s wonderfully entertaining. The journey to the coast can be broken up in the best possible way, starting with Appleby, a moorland with sheep-grazed turf that’s perfect for striking irons from. Its holes are playable and clever, while the 15th is one everyone should have on their CV.
Brampton is barely 15 minutes from the M74 and is a characterful, charming, undulating moorland. It has a handful of holes that would sit seamlessly at any course in the Top 100. It’s a bracing walk, but the scenic rewards are plentiful. Pair it with parkland Carlisle for a superb 36-hole day en route to or from the coast.
In between, Windermere combines an epic setting with enjoyably eccentric holes.
THE COTSWOLDS
There has, with good reason, been growing acclaim for Gloucestershire and Herefordshire over the last couple of years. The entertainment-to-cost factor is extraordinarily high.
It’s not for everyone, because the courses here are generally not conditioned to the levels of a well-heeled parkland. But if adventure, character and fun rank higher than presentation for you, the Cotswolds are perfect.
It’s hard to know what the best thing about Kington is; the views, turf, fun holes or cost. Ross-on-wye is Herefordshire’s other star, a woodland of high class.
The rest of the trip is in Gloucestershire, and all are easily reached from your base for the trip, Tewkesbury Park, one of GB&I’S finest play-and-stay resorts.
I could pretty much repeat the description of Kington above for the experience at Cleeve Hill; it’s every bit as enjoyable and equally as aesthetically pleasing.
Painswick also firmly falls into that category, a course the notoriously hard-toplease Tom Doak adores. You share your round with walkers and there is some crisscrossing of holes, but it is riotous fun.
Minchinhampton’s Old – a lie-of-the-land course in and around the quaint village – and its Cherington, plus The Players (Stranahan) by Adrian Stiff, give you three more tempting venues.
STAFFORDSHIRE
The JCB Club’s arrival has given Staffs new impetus. It’s a modern course of real interest and is presented beautifully.
It’s complemented perfectly by ‘the beautiful wilderness’ of Beau Desert, a heathy woodland with admirable green complexes, as well as Sutton Coldfield, whose renovation work on an Alister Mackenzie design is likely to see it enter the Top 100 before too long. Whittington Heath gives Staffs two brilliant 36-hole days.
SUFFOLK
Royal Worlington & Newmarket is a favourite of architectural connoisseurs and ‘The Sacred Nine’ is a perfect start to any trip to Suffolk.
From there you head for the coast and to Thorpeness, your base for the trip. Here you’ll find a James Braid maritime heathland packed with memorable holes and which, as it undergoes a woodland management, will rise in the Top 100.
The hotel is ideal, with comfortable rooms, a charming bar, terrific breakfast and the 1st tee just yards away.
It’s also 10 minutes from Aldeburgh, a classy maritime heathland that is a wonderful all-round examination.
Two exquisite heathlands complete the trip. Ipswich (Purdis Heath) has a GB&I Top 100-calibre opening nine and is as engaging as golf can be, while Woodbridge is simply gorgeous; get it on a sunny day and it feels like you’re in heaven.
The part-links of Felixstowe Ferry (Martello) and the nuanced nine-holer Flempton give Suffolk further depth.