194 - Celtic Manor Resort (Roman Road)

Location: Newport, Wales

Rating: 7.9

After playing the Montgomerie Course in the morning and tucking into a lovely burger at The Grill, the restaurant serving the two courses, I set out to play the Roman Roads course. It is a very different prospect to the Montgomerie course. It’s a par 70 and 150 meters longer but much wider as well, the type of course where you can get up and hit a driver on most holes without thinking too much about it.

A lot of the holes were fairly similar and the main obstacle on this course was avoiding the bunkers but I thought the 5th was a pretty cool hole, a par 5 weaving through the trees with a green nestled at the bottom of the hill and directly after the 6th, a par 4 going straight back up the hill and potentially driveable if you hit a good shot. There were a couple of blind tee shots on 8 and 10 and a very tricky 13th hole, doglegging to the right with an approach over the creek but sadly that was the end of my round.

For the first time I had to walk off a course, there were 4 groups stacked up on the tee and I unfortunately couldn’t wait 45 minutes to play a hole so for the first time I opted to cut my round short which took a lot for me to do. I can appreciate they get a lot of tours and societies coming through but a marshal certainly would’ve been helpful on a day like that.

Having said that really enjoyed the contrast of those two courses and if you get beaten up by the Montgomerie in the morning the Roman Roads might offer a little respite.

The courses are serviced with a very nice driving range and lovely practice facilities and a couple of Pro Shops. It was a shame about the delay but honestly found this part of the resort really good!