Golf in Wales: No Hurry to Go Anywhere Fast

Here, on the chunky knob of the United Kingdom facing the United States, the days coast by slow and relaxed, in no hurry to go anywhere fast.
A short skip across the bay – and in plain site from North Wales Golf Club – lies Conwy Golf Club, and the medieval walled village of Conwy. A flat spurof land at the mouth of a river, Conwy has given its name to a mountain, the river and a castle securely ringed by enormous rock walls that have surrounded the central town for centuries. Conwy Golf Club was established in 1890, playing across a stretch of sand hills, heavy gorse, ditches and stubborn turf. Set between mountain, river and sea, Conwy Golf Course has been a local icon for centuries, even playing a secret military role on D-Day.

Conwy hosted the first Welsh Q-round venue for the 2006 British Open Championship and is regarded as the toughest test of golf in North Wales.

About an hour’s drive southwest of Conwy lies Nefyn, another seaside town with an impressive setting. The path to Nefyn takes you past the world’s smallest habitable house, just outside Conwy’s medieval walls. The home – originally built for two – barely accommodates one these days, a 14th century timber and plaster hovel no bigger than a coat closet. A couple of towns beyond the smallest house lies Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwyllllantisiliogogogoch, the railroad station tagged with the longest name in the world. (The name means “the Church of Mary in a white hollow by a hazel tree near a rapid whirlpool by the church of St. Tisilio by a red cave.”) Snaking your way along single-lane roads that seem to lead to nowhere in particular, you finally dead-end in the town of Nefyn.

Nefyn Golf Club clutches a craggy coastline as harsh and imposing as Pebble Beach, and as bucolic as Bandon Dunes. As with Conwy and North Wales, Nefyn’s official 6,200 yards belie the impact of the winds and the elevation changes. The 18-hole layout opens with a long, downhill powerhouse then moves out along the ragged cliffs cantilevered above the sea for a number of spectacular holes before heading back. You never really lose sight of the water or the light spray of saltwater on most of the course.

The par-5, 12th hole confronts you with more distractions than should be permitted. First, there are the expansive views of the bay from an elevated fairway. Add a blind drive, a blind second shot and a public road that runs along the side. Then there’s a crater-sized pothole bunker, a fairway precariously clinging to the top of a cliff and a small house near the green. Not an ordinary house, but Ty Coch Inn, a pub that’s open to the public – including thirsty golfers.

Since you’re walking the course (and there’s no beverage cart), stop by the Inn for a pint during the round; nearly everyone else does.

With its dramatic views and excellent conditioning, Nefyn is a fine course and a blast to play. It’s no wonder that Nefyn Golf Course is among Ian Woosnam’s favorite courses. With 10 of its holes running beside the sea, this is one course you’ll want to play twice.

Another hour farther around the southwest tip of Wales, the town of Harlech and the Royal St. David’s Golf Course promise more wind and yet another castle. Deep in Merlin country, the locals regard St. David’s as a magical place, full of history and majesty.

The course is splayed out below the towers of a castle Edward I built in the 13th century to keep his Welsh subjects under control. Now, in an ironic twist, the Welsh run the countryside and English visitors must ask for permission to play on these same grounds.

A four-club wind blows nothing but trouble across the sand dunes, where only once in its 6,601 yards do two successive holes play in the same direction. Most regard St. David’s as one of the top five courses in all of Britain.

Michael Hiller is a member of the Society of American Travel Writers and the Golf Writer’s Association of America. He is the Contributing Editor of AVIDGOLFER Magazine.

INSIDE DETAILS
Getting There: Wales’s international airport is an easy flight from most of Europe, but it’s a bit trickier to reach from the U.S. While many carriers can transport you from Dallas to London, the easier way to travel is to fly from Dallas to Chicago (or Las Vegas), catch British Midland Airlines (BMI, www.bmi.com) to Manchester, England, and avoid the snarl of London’s traffic. Northwest Wales is a simple drive from Manchester. And once inside England, BMI has more flights to more U.K. destinations than any other airline.

Where to Stay: There are plenty of comfortable accommodations throughout most of Wales, but locals often head off to vacation towns for long weekends, so don’t travel without securing at least preliminary lodging arrangements.
Osborne House (www.osbornehouse.com) in the town of Conwy and near North Wales Golf Club, and Castle Hotel (www.castlewales.co.uk), in the heart of medieval (and walled) Conwy are two nice places to stay with good food and comfortable rooms.

Close to Royal St. David’s, Hotel Portmeirion and Castell Deraeth (www.portmeirion-village.com) sit in a self-contained village bordering the sea. The Castell has huge, modern rooms with low-slung leather furniture, sleek bathrooms, cosmopolitan styling, while the Hotel is more formal, more classic.
Finding lodging near Nefyn is a bit more cumbersome, so consider a stay in Conwy or Portmeirion and take the scenic drive. It’s worth it.

Golf in Wales plays leisurely like that, too. It’s something to be enjoyed, like a sip of whiskey or a pint of local ale. Golf here is usually links, on the sandy dunes and fingers of native grasses that lie between the sea and the town road. Over time, gorse and heather take root, as do a few trees and bushes. But links courses are mostly flat with a few challenging undulations – and requisite pot bunkers dug here and there.

While each course retains its own character, the wind has uniquely shaped and sculpted each swath of land over hundreds of years. All that golfers had to do was sit and wait long enough for Mother Nature to create the bulk of the course.

Farther inland from the sandy transition zone between sea and fertile earth, the loamy soil is more hospitable to farming and ranching. Sheep graze nearly everywhere, easily outnumbering the other livestock beasts. Their pasture grasses are deeply greened and a foot tall or more. You can follow the wind as it sweeps across a meadow, the grasses bowing then rebounding as the wave clears.

Spring and winter rains usually drop torrents of water, but what is golf in Wales (or Scotland or Ireland, for that matter) without rain and wind?

On this trip, though, not a drop is predicted, which pleases both us golfers and the sheep.

Nearly 200 golf courses interrupt the pastoral roll of the land, each the favorite of its local members. In the hamlet of Llandudno, trains whistle by the left edge of the seventh and eighth fairways every few minutes, whisking their passengers to grander cities, but not much can beat a round with North Wales Golf Club captain Alex Harvey.

“Real connoisseurs of golf appreciate this course the most,” Harvey boasts. “No two shots from the same position ever play the same because the winds are never the same.”
Harvey’s skin looks thick from a long life in the sun and wind, but his love of golf remains youthful.

In this quadrant of the U.K., as in much of Wales, the wind can be either friend or foe. And the threat of a good golf match seems to bring out the wind’s worst. At North Wales Golf Club, short par 3s can require anything from a 9-iron to a strong 3-wood.

Under a patchy spring sky, sea gulls ride the air currents effortlessly, gliding in from the bay, hoping to snag a nibble of fried shrimp from a complacent member at the clubhouse.
A dozen golfers make an easy walk around the course, with holes nicknamed “Hades” and, for balance, (and to appease the scornful eyes of the church) “Paradise.” There’s also a pair of back-to-back par 3s, known as “O’hell” (into the wind) and “Hell’o” (downwind, naturally). But don’t let its 6,300 yards lull you into complacency;