GOLFING IN ENGLAND & WALES

Just a stone’s throw away from London, southern England’s most famous 18-holer is the perfect golfing getaway for those visiting the capital. As you make the journey east from London, urban landscapes surrender to rolling fields, wild flowers and undulating dunes, revealing one of England’s finest golfing treasures.

Royal St George is a throwback to an age of chivalry when players kept an appointment with dawn and a drink in the members bar. You will be greeted with a warm welcome worthy of a returning patron before taking club to ball on this historic links course that has played host to the Open Championship no fewer than 14 times.

Set in the idyllic Welsh countryside, Celtic Manor is a truly spectacular and memorable place to stay and play. Its Twenty Ten course was purpose built for the Ryder Cup tournament and boasts many robust water hazards as well as some testing risk-and-reward dilemmas.

One of the features of the spectacular course is its variety, with many of the earlier holes having a links-like feel with long rough and greenside swales, before the middle section reveals the full extent of the lake-lined challenge. A tough finishing stretch culminates in a real sting in the tail at the 18th.

A hard day’s work on the fairways and greens is rewarded with unparalleled levels of comfort and service at the show-stopping 5-star Resort Hotel. This luxury hotel at the centre of the resort boasts an impressive 6 restaurants of differing cuisines, numerous fine bars and 2 excellent spas. Surely no better way to relax after all that golfing?

England is packed with magnificent golf clubs and courses but few are as revered as Walton Heath and its Old Course. The course designer, Herbert Fowler, liked to test the extent of the golfer’s repertoire of shots. The Old Course has many demands, but its greater length means that more “Scottish shots” are likely to be needed in this Surrey haven. When you do reach the greens, they are large, hard, fast, and true.

If you love golf with its endless frustrations and rewards, you will love the Old Course at Walton Heath, for it is the epitome of golf – under a big sky, on barely tamed heathland, and requiring finesse and strength (of mind and body) in equal measure.

If courses steeped in history are your thing, then look no further than Hoylake at the The Royal Liverpool Golf Club.

The original layout was conceived by Robert Chambers and George Morris, and was extended to 18 holes in 1871, the same year that it was awarded its Royal status by Queen Victoria. In the early days, the links land doubled as the racecourse of the Liverpool Hunt Club, but these days the golf course takes centre stage.

The links at Hoylake can be beautiful, uplifting, challenging, and even daunting despite its benign and unthreatening appearance. The course was created to be a demanding test of golf and remains so, and lies at the very heart of the history and development of the game in Great Britain. Hoylake makes the trickiest demands of a player’s shot selection, distance control and accuracy. Come play and pit your wits and clubs against this famous course.

Wentworth Golf Club is without doubt one of the most extraordinary golf resorts in the country. Situated in affluent Virginia Water, less than an hour away from central London, Wentworth’s beautiful setting is nothing short of spectacular. Its fabled castellated clubhouse epitomises the luxurious heart of the club, which is further embodied by the incredible courses and facilities on offer.

Wentworth Club has been known as the home of golfing champions since the precursor to the Ryder Cup was played here in 1926. Many more famous Championships have been held at the Club since, with the greatest professionals of the modern golfing era winning on Wentworth’s hallowed courses. Visitors are free to play all three of the club’s magnificent golf courses and have the privilege of walking in the footsteps of champions every day.

No course in the British Isles comes closer in design to the Augusta National than the magnificent Old Course at Sunningdale Golf Club.

Revolutionary in its day, the course was laid out in the last days of the gutty ball in 1901 over a mixture of hills, heath and woodland that had hitherto not been considered as suitable for golf course construction.

Today, as one of the world’s best inland golf courses, a day of golf at Sunningdale is a must visit for any golfer, whether to play this in isolation or to visit as part of a golf tour in Surrey including the likes of Wentworth and Walton Heath.