196 - Royal Porthcrawl Golf Club

Location: Porthcrawl, Wales

Rating: 8.4

One of the top 100 courses in the world and undoubtedly one of the best manicured courses I have had the honour of playing but didn’t quite rate it as highly as many others have.

The course is in a wonderful location and we were blessed with a beautiful sunny day in South Wales. As part of the green fee you get a breakfast and what a location for it, sat overlooking the beach on the south coast with the (small) waves crashing on the shore with a coffee in hand was a delight.

Stepping onto the course it is in pristine condition, the first hole running parallel to the ocean was a hint at what was to come. A couple of our group barely missing the fairway and we’d have had to send a search party out to find the ball. The second and third are fairly similar in that vain, par 4’s with undulations and some blind shots. Unfortunately throughout the round I just found it way too penal. Barely missing the fairway resulted in very thick rough and not being able to find your ball. I think one of the worst cases of this was the 13th I think, a completely blind tee shot to a fairway cambering to the right with thick rough on that side of the hole resulting in no ball found on a very difficult tee shot. All very unnecessary and taking away from the experience on a day where I thought I was playing quite well but getting brutally punished.

The 5th hole was a very cool par 5 with a dog-legging left fairway to a high raised green and the par 3’s were incredibly tricky with loads of pot bunkers protecting the plateau which I really do like, I think they’re part and parcel of a great links course.

The routing of the course is very good and the grass pathways in between are awesome, like walking on a carpet.

I think the overall experience could be better. For £220 I would really expect a better overall experience, most courses in this bracket provide a welcome gift, have a starter and have a driving range with full use of the balls so I really don’t see it in that elite status.

Having said that the driving range was very good, lush grass to hit off and a large short game area to work on your game.

Overall a really good course, maybe missing a few more memorable holes and a better experience for the day.