Panmure Golf Club

On the other side of the railroad tracks, a bit further west than Carnoustie lies Panmure, one of the oldest courses in the world, with origins dating back to 1845. Panmure features an out and back layout, one of the most striking out and back courses I have played since Western Gailes on Scotland's west coast. 

Allan Robertson and Alexander Pirie came from St. Andrews and laid out the original nine holes. The course was then known as the Monifieth Links. The club had trouble the first few years with the tenant of the Monifieth Farm who claimed a right of pasturage on the links and complained about the club's use of the land. The club promised to pay for any damages done to the land or to any of his livestock. The tenant farmer did not accept their proposal and brought about legal action. The farmer, James Maule, died in 1852 and the interdict was removed allowing the golfers to chase around their fragile feathery balls once again.

By 1893, there were a number of clubs all playing on Monifieth Golf Course, and due to the congestion it was agreed to look elsewhere, and in 1899 the club moved to its present site at Barry. The original Monifieth course still exists and is directly west of Panmure. 

Although the current course is sometimes described as an original Old Tom Morris design, the evidence of such is scant. In the Golf Courses of Old Tom Morris Robert Kroeger says, "it is doubtful that Morris had much input in the early stages of the course. Club minutes don't mention any fee paid to him. It is possible he was traveling to another destination and stopped here as a favor to someone. It seem that the original members should be given credit for the initial construction of the course and its early development."

James Braid was brought in to lengthen the course in 1923, which is set on a narrow strip of land and plays among low rounded sandhills, which make excellent sites for tees and greens. The first six holes go out, all in the same direction into the prevailing wind, number seven is the first hole that plays in a different direction and holes thirteen through eighteen play back in the opposite direction.

Play well, move quickly. Playing badly, play quicker. Horray!

The first four holes at Panmure lull you into a sense that the course doesn't have much to it. Three par fours and a par five all running in the same direction, none particularly taxing, especially if played down wind like the conditions on the day I played them, the opposite of what is normally blowing. The course starts to get interesting at the par three 5th which has a punchbowl green.

Panmure's 6th hole, a par four of 414 yards has a blind tee shot . . .

. . . followed by a blind approach unless you hug the right side of the fairway

The elevated, well protected green on the 6th

The sixth hole was a favorite of Ben Hogans when he used Panmure as his warmup course before winning the 1953 Open Championship at Carnoustie, which is adjacent to Panmure. He played there for two weeks prior to the Open. At the time the British used a smaller ball, so he was both getting used to links golf and the smaller ball. 1953 would be his only trip to the British Isles. Hogan chose Panmure to practice at because at the time it was an extremely private club and this allowed him to go about his business out of the eye of the eager public and press, who wanted to follow his every move.

During Hogan's visit Panmure did not have a practice area so he did his practicing on the 17th hole, never using more than a dozen balls at a time. One day Hogan asked the head greenkeeper if the blades of the mower could be lowered to shave the green a little to make it more like the speed of the Carnoustie greens. The greenkeeper, William Falconer, replied, "Here's the mower, Mr. Hogan!" Hogan cut the green himself and even cleaned it before giving it back. Hogan was invited to use the dining room and lounge, but he declined, instead taking all his meals in the kitchen because he didn't want to create any trouble, since at the time the club professional wasn't allowed into the clubhouse.

The sixth begins the first of seven holes at the end of the property that, unlike the outward four and the incoming six, play at all different directions on the compass.

The eighth is another hole with a blind tee shot and it is a great 361 risk-reward par four that plays to a well protected green.

The 8th hole has a blind approach from the right side that offers this view to the golfer

Par-3 9th hole, 180 yards from the back tees

The 12th hole, a par four of almost 400 yards has the Buddon Burn protecting the approach to the green

The pin flag on the 12th green nestled behind a sand dune

Panmure has eleven holes that have out of bounds and with the wind blowing, as it normally is, the course is no pushover.

The clubhouse is a replica of the Royal Calcutta Golf Club in India, and was built in 1871. The reason they have a clubhouse modeled after one in India is because Panmure, and the larger city of Dundee 20 miles away, was a hub of jute (rope or twine) trading with merchants in Calcutta. The club's history states that large numbers of jutewallahs (traders of jute) were Panmure members.

The historic locker room at Panmure

There are few 19th holes as welcoming and comforting as Panmures

The Hogan room in the clubhouse

Past club captains on display in the clubhouse, dating back over 160 years

Many golfers, myself included up until this point, don't give a lot of consideration to adding Panmure to a golf trip to Scotland. With a rich variety of choices of within an hour of St. Andrews it is understandable that Panmure gets overlooked. If it does get mentioned it is as the course that Hogan used to warm up on in 1953. It's too bad that Panmure gets overlooked because it is a great and interesting golf course and I enjoyed my visit there immensely. In addition, there are few places that treat guests better and whose plush, museum-like sprawling clubhouse is historic and comfortable. Panmure deserves more respect.

Huntercombe Golf Club

The rules at Huntercombe Golf Club in Oxfordshire:

• No tee times
• We are delighted to welcome visitors throughout the year, but you will have to forgive our idiosyncrasies. We like to keep play moving and are essentially a 2-ball course
• No four balls
• Lunch, no dinner
• In the dining room gentlemen should wear a jacket and tie

Well, well, well. A proper English golf club, playing the game in the proper way. Huntercombe has long been on my bucket list and I am thrilled to have finally played it.

Maidstone, the Old Course at Sunningdale, Huntercombe. All the work of Willie Park, Jr., one of my favorite designers. Park was the Open Champion in 1887 at Prestwick and again in 1889 at Musselburgh. He was the first person to pursue golf course architecture as a profession, designing 160 courses in total. Huntercombe was not only a golf course he designed, it was also his baby, so to speak. An aspiring businessman as well as an architect, he purchased the 724 acre Huntercombe Manor in 1900 and set out to develop it as the Chiltern Estates, which was to include a 100 bedroom hotel.

In an advertisement for Huntercombe, Park described the club as "A perfect seaside course, Inland. Grand old turf, gravel and sand subsoil, health-giving breezes, an ideal course for London golfers." As an added enticement to get men in the City to join the club arranged "motor cars," to meet the 9:50 am and 6:30 pm trains from Paddington Station when they arrived at Henley. Since my health hasn't been great over the last few years I particularly looked forward to playing Huntercombe for those health-giving breezes!

Park's business acumen was lacking and in 1924, the club, having financial difficulties, was sold to William Morris, Lord Nuffield, founder of the Morris Motor Car Company, whom the club has previously declined to admit as a member (awkward). He owned and ran the club until shortly before his death in 1963, selling it to the members for £1. Nuffield was wildly successful and philanthropic, establishing Nuffield College at Oxford in 1937. The Chiltern Estates and 100 bedroom hotel were never built, leaving Huntercombe in a delightfully rural environment.

The quintessential English home of Lord Nuffield in Oxfordshire

Huntercombe is located in Henley-on-Thames in the tony county of Oxfordshire. Henley-on-Thames is the site of the most famous regatta in the world, the Henley Royal Regatta, a rowing version of Royal Ascot, and an occasion, with well dressed patrons decked out in their best finery and hats.

Huntercombe has views of the Chiltern Hills, which doesn't mean much to most of us. The Chiltern Hills are designated by the British Government as an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, which is an apt description. Think quintessential rolling English countryside, with farm fields dotted with hedge rows. Below is an image of Huntercombe's fourth green as seen from a drone, with the Chiltern Hills in the distance. Pretty enticing.

Photo credit: Hutercombe Golf Club's Twitter feed

The 1st green at Huntercombe

The first three holes at Huntercombe are set apart from the remaining fifteen. The first three play just away from the clubhouse and run down and then up a steep hill. The remaining fifteen holes play on a different piece of topography and are flat. The first, a par three, starts with a large two-tiered green, which sets the tone for the day regarding the putting surfaces. Although the hole is only 142 yards long, from the tee you can see the pin flag but not the hole.

The course starts on a par three not by design, but because when the new clubhouse was built it was near this hole. The original starting hole is today's fourteenth, which was adjacent to the original clubhouse, Huntercombe Manor, which is still there today and is a private residence.  Huntercombe is one of the few courses I am aware of that plays shorter today than when it opened. The course opened at 6,500 yards and today plays as 6,319 yards; holes two, three, five, six, and eleven having been shortened.

The second at Huntercombe, a difficult par four, sweeps down a broad hill

The second hole, a par four of 416 yards, plays down a broad hill with a dramatic drop in elevation from an elevated tee. The hole also slopes right to left with out of bounds on the left. It is difficult to describe how far right you have to hit the ball off the tee in order to have it run down the hill a bit. On the day I played the conditions were fast and firm to say the least, and any ball hit on the fairway ended up running down to the left in a collection area, taking all the strategy out of playing the hole. I imagine in more normal conditions the design brings more risk-reward into play.

The zany, two-tiered third green

After walking through a stand of trees you stumble upon the third hole, a par four of 368 yards that plays much longer, climbing the same steep terrain you just descended. A mirror opposite of the second, any ball hit to the right side of the fairway on this hole will run down the hill to collection areas on the left. The green is tucked into the side of the top of the hill on the left and features another dramatic two tiered green.

Hmm . . . three holes and three two-tiered greens. I am not that bright but I'm spotting a trend here.

Grass hazard short of the 4th green on the right side at Huntercombe

The fourth hole is a relatively easy one that plays 331 yards downhill. It is also the golfer's true introduction to the hazards of the golf course. Huntercombe only has 13 sand bunkers, but has scores and scores of grass bunkers, or as the course calls them, "Pots." They are big, sometimes unsettlingly deep ditches and hollows without sand and they can prove a surprisingly effective hazard.

Huntercombe's 4th green

Huntercombe 4th green, like the first three, is multi-tiered and features a pronounced depression in it as seen above.

This grass bunker guards the left side of the 4th green

A large grass hazard guards the sixth hole approach 

As you can see from the image above, course conditions were not optimal when I played in September 2022, after a long and persistent drought. While greens and tee boxes were in excellent condition from an irrigation system, fairways and grass hazards were in a tough state, something I had to look past all day long to appreciate the beauty and uniqueness of Huntercombe's design.

The testing par-3 7th hole at Huntercombe

The seventh, the second par three on the front nine, a whopping 213 yards, is a real tester, not only because of its length but also because of the large mounding that protects the entrance to the putting surface.

People make pilgrimages from around the world to see the 8th hole, with its large, multi-tiered putting surface. A par four of 427 yards, it is the #1 stroke index hole. It helps to remember that this green was built in 1900 and Park's influence as a designer meant that greens such as this would be copied by designers such as Charles Blair Macdonald (who modeled a hole at the National Golf Links after a hole at Park's Sunningdale), and even modern day designers such as Pete Dye and Tom Doak.

A broad view of the 8th green at Huntercombe

This close-up of the 8th green shows some of the dramatic sloping

The back tier, where the pin is placed here, is by far the smallest surface area of the green.

The 14th green at Huntercombe is a sort of punch bowl style and surrounded by low mounding

The 16th, a par five, features one of the deepest grass bunkers on the course. A bomb crater bunker.

The seventeenth was my favorite hole on the course but I wasn't able to get any good pictures of it. It is a 274 yard ball-busting risk-reward par four similar in playing style to the 17th at National Golf Links, one of my favorite holes in the world. It is full of very effective grass bunkers and plays to a well protected push up green, with several of the courses scant sand bunkers used as protection. I made a double bogey on it unfortunately.

Ian Fleming was a member of Huntercombe and as such he tells us that James Bond played his golf “on courses around London – Huntercombe, Swinley, Sunningdale, the Berkshire. At the start of their famous golf match, Bond tells Goldfinger that he played off 9 at Huntercombe, which was Fleming's handicap. Fleming is my kind of golfer and used to play on Sunday mornings at 8:00am with a partner, and they were always done in under two hours. 

The course remains popular among members of Parliament and high ranking government officials. The one-time head of MI6, Sir David Spedding, was a member of Huntercombe. While having lunch in the intentionally modest clubhouse I noticed a Marshal of the Air Force's name up on one of the club championship boards. The club's ambiance and culture is one befitting high profile people in search of peace, quiet, and discretion. Early golf course architects J .F Abercromby and C. H. Alison were members, as was the famed golf writer Henry Longhurst.

It was nice to finally visit Huntercombe and see the historic course with its crazy greens, grass hazards and proper English setting. It's too bad I hit it in sub-optimal conditions, which only means I have to come back someday when the grass is lush. I'm sure the club won't mind as long as I don't show up as a four ball!

Hankley Common Golf Club

I have an internal debate with myself often (sad, isn't it?) about which area of the world has the best golf mile for mile. Long Island is surely in the discussion, and probably wins if I'm honest, although Scotland could also win the race. However, when you analyze all the fantastic golf within 90 minutes of Buckingham Palace, a very strong case can be made that greater London, on the strength of golf in Surrey, is the winner. Gems such as Sunningdale, St. George's Hill, Swinley Forest, Walton Heath, and Wentworth form quite a cluster. I am trying to slowly tick off as many courses as I can while my health (and wallet) holds up.  Other courses on my bucket list are the Berkshire Red and Blue, New Zealand Golf Club, and the three W's: Woking, Worplesdon, and West Hill. Today's visit is to Hankley Common in Surrey. 

Life is so rich and golf is so rewarding!

Anyway, to the golf course in a minute. First, I feel compelled to write about how much I love London. I had forgotten how extraordinary a city it is. As someone who has spent a lifetime working in New York City I had become deluded, like many New Yorkers do, that it is the greatest city in the world. Wrong. London is far better. I still love New York, but the frenetic activity, noise, dirt, pollution, and density are too much. London is so much greener with pocket parks scattered throughout the city in every nook and cranny. It is also greener from an environmental point of view with electric vehicles and buses greatly cutting down on pollution. And it is so much quieter than any American city. Brits, even taxi drivers, don't lean on their horns. People are more patient, polite, and quieter. The city is cleaner, more civilized and more genial than any American city I am familiar with. I spent thirty plus years traveling extensively to almost every city in the States and the quality of life in London is superior in my view.

On the down side, it is an expensive city to live in. The cost of living is through the roof. I also have fantasy agendas when I go the Britain, visiting all the posh places and sampling the best the city has to offer. On this trip I stayed off the Kings Road in Chelsea near Sloane Square. It is a delightful neighborhood. The other thing that jumped out at me again is how dog crazed the English are. There were scores and scores of people in Central London walking and pampering their dogs. 

Hankley Common began as a nine hole course laid out by James Braid in 1897 on Surrey's natural heathlands. Braid advised on the addition of nine more holes in 1922, then H. S. Colt remodeled the course in 1936, so the pedigree is about as good as can be. I drove the ball very well at Hankley but pulled a lot of my approach shots. It made for a long day for one reason and one reason only: heather. Heather makes the course a pleasure to look at but it serves as a very effective hazard, causing the loss of at least one stroke if you end up in it.

The first green at Hankley Common

The course starts gently enough with an easy par four that plays on flat ground. The blind green is set down in a hollow and doesn't present too much of a challenge to hit with a good approach shot.

The par-3 second hole at Hankley

The par three second hole also isn't overly taxing, requiring a mid iron shot to a receptive green. The course starts to show its natural beauty on the par three second, with a green perfectly situated in a corner of the property.

Hankley's third green framed by gorse bushes on the left side

The third hole is a par four of 347 yards and offers a generous fairway, as do most holes. The trick here is to be on the right side of the fairway to avoid a semi-blind shot into the two tiered green.

The fourth hole shouldn't be that hard, but it is. The green sits near the clubhouse and we watched golfers trying to hit the green as we had lunch before our round. I thought to myself, why is everyone approaching from the left side and missing the green? Well, I know the answer now. I did the same thing and hit left off the tee, which sets you up that way because the fairway is so narrow. It is simply the wrong angle to approach the oblong green from, particularly if you end up in the heather like a knucklehead, as I did. What a great design for a 327 yard hole. 

The fifth hole at Hankley as seen from the tee

The fifth hole, a par four of 381 yards, is the most difficult hole on the front. The hole bends to the left around strategically placed bunkers, seen in the distance to the left. I landed in the heather on the left, which is sub-optimal to say the least. Being on the right side of the fairway is essential to properly approach this very tricky, narrow green, seen below:

The tricky fifth green at Hankley Common

 

The world-class par three 7th hole at Hankley with foreboding skies above

The difficult par three seventh hole is one of the best on the course and one of the best par threes in the Surrey region, which is saying something given the quality of golf here. It plays 183 yards on the card, but as you can see, the green is perched on top of a hill. The day we played there was roughly a two club wind. It must be something quirky about where the hole is situated with the green on the apex of a hill, but it was far windier on this corner of the course, making it an even greater challenge.

The unfortunate golfer (moi) that hits their tee shot to the right side of the seventh green will face this daunting blind shot to a tough green

The vista of the appealing eighth hole from the tee box

The eighth hole, a par five, plays from the top of the same hill that the seventh green is on and it offers the best vista of the day, showing off the handsome nature of Hankley with its heather and Scots Pine trees.

My preference is to walk a golf course if I can. Due to a deteriorating chronic lung condition as a result of my transplant, I can't walk up hills or steep inclines anymore so I took a cart at Hankley, and I'm glad I did because I wouldn't have been able to traverse the terrain the course is artfully routed over. 

The club owns a staggering 850 acres, offering panoramic views throughout the day. Let's pause for a minute and think about 850 acres. Not a small amount of land anywhere, but in Surrey! Not bad, especially considering that they paid £800 to buy it from the estate owner in 1942. As in classic English fashion, this club is probably quite well off, but is equally understated. The golf course itself only occupies 164 acres; the club leases a good chunk of the land the British Ministry of Defense which uses it as a training ground for their armed forces. Troops built an Atlantic Wall here during the Second World War and practiced their D-Day invasion. Three James Bond movies have also used parts of Hankley Common, (the broader Common, not the golf course) for their films.

Holes ten, eleven, and twelve are known as Colt's Corner since they are the holes he designed. Since I spent most of the time looking for my ball in the heather during that stretch I didn't get any pictures of them.

The cracking finishing hole at Hankley Common

The finishing hole at Hankley is one of the most interesting I have seen in all my travels. The tee shot on this 432 yard hole is a forced carry over heather. The unsuspecting golfer has no idea what is coming. As you walk (or ride, as I did) the crest of a gentle hill you see the challenge to come. There is a treacherous gully protecting the green.

The 18th hole at Hankley Common seen looking backward from the green shows the tricky nature of the hole

The fairway bends slightly to the right after you crest the hill, and if you smash your drive you are left with a downhill lie that requires a long iron or hybrid club over the gully to the green. Bon chance. I was forced to lay up because, shockingly, my tee shot landed in the heather. 

A close up of the grass bunker/hazard/ditch short left of the last green at Hankley

A view of the menacing 18th hole up close shows the hazards you have to carry to land on the relatively small green

As I mentioned in the opening, the course has a gentle start, with easy holes over the opening stretch. It more than makes up for that on the finish. I liken it to the last at Pine Valley, which also challenges the golfer with a shot from a downhill lie over a demanding hazard (in the case of Pine Valley, water) to a testing green.

Tom Doak gives the course a 5 in his Confidential Guide and says, "there is the nagging suspicion that there are a few too many holes where the fairway runs too straight and too long without any bunkers to liven up the proceedings. A few diagonal cross hazards would do wonders here." He knows a lot more about architecture than I do and it is a fair observation.

Hankley Common is the most dog friend course I have ever been to. When you walk up to the door of the clubhouse there is a water bowl for dogs. Same thing on the back porch, where we had lunch: water bowls for man's four legged friends. I would say at least half the members who were out playing had their canine pals with them. On one hole there were two golfers teeing off and each had a dog. The dogs sat about 30 yards ahead of the golfers perfectly positioned facing the tee box to see their masters hit their drives. What a country. Woof!

North Berwick Golf Club

After postponing my trip twice due to the pandemic, I was finally able to return back to the style of golf I love the most, which is that in the magical British Isles. Although I have written about North Berwick before, I couldn't resist doing another because I hit the course on a sparkling day which was very accommodating to picture taking. Even though I played the course three years ago and it is difficult to choose which courses to play when organizing a trip, I included it on my itinerary again. It my fifth time playing the historic links and I can't get enough.

Minimal words . . . maximum pictures . . . especially of the 13th "Pit" hole . . . remarkable . . .

The roly-poly second fairway at North Berwick sets the tone for the day

The third hole is the golfers introduction to one of North Berwick's defining features, the old stone walls

The green on the par three 4th hole

The brilliance of the Firth of Forth is the backdrop for aptly named "Bass" hole, the 12th, with its namesake rock in the distance, right

When one looks to narrow down the hundreds of thousands of golf holes in the world to the best handful, North Berwick's 13th ("Pit") is on the short list. Seen here from the fairway at a distance

The approach to the 13th as seen from a bunker on the far left side of the fairway, with the green tucked behind the stone wall

The green as seen from behind, shows the absolute genius of the design, and its sheer fun

Did I mention I liked the hole? Another shot with a wider view of the beach

I missed taking any pictures of the Redan hole, but did make a par, which I am thrilled with. Hit the ball eight feet from the cup. The trick was to aim at least thirty yards right of where the flag is. Difficult to do but rewarding. 

The par four sixteenth with one of the craziest greens in the world

My ball is the one closest to the camera. I was here in two but am too embarrassed to tell you my score. Sadly it was not a three or a four 

The "Home," hole. Very easy but one of the most satisfying in the game to play

Traveling for me these days is a production. I had to take an extra suitcase to carry all my medicines and I brought everything I might need should something go wrong. The eye drops I use need to remain frozen/refrigerated and the inhaler machine I use for my lungs takes up a lot of space. All this rigmarole is like an umbrella: if you don't bring it, it's sure to rain. It worked, and I warded off Murphy's Law from coming into play, so it was worth it to ensure a successful trip. 

I am blessed to be able to travel to Scotland and play such fantastic courses.