The Wandering Golfers

12/06/2024

🚨 Pinehurst/US Open competition time! 🚨

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🏆 Competition ends 16/6

02/02/2024

The North Course at Te Arai Links, New Zealand.
This is the second course at this beautiful resort, the North joining the stupendous South. Along with the sublime Tara Iti, this once deserted corner of New Zealand must now be considered one of world’s great golf destinations.
It says much about the embarrassment of golfing riches along this spectacular coastline, an hour or so north of the capital Auckland, that ‘only’ having seven of the 18 holes feature the ocean could prompt some to think architect Tom Doak (https://thewanderinggolfers.com/tag/tom-doak/) had drawn the the short straw when he was tasked with designing the North Course at Te Arai Links.
While the South Course (https://thewanderinggolfers.com/te-arai-links-south-course/) has views of the Pacific on 16 holes, The North starts and finishes by the ocean, but its a rollercoaster of inland holes which really give the course it’s identity.
The 18 holes Doak has produce speak for themselves. On our first visit to Te Arai Links we compared the South Course’s smooth and relaxing routing to a Coldplay track. However a loop of the North is more akin to AC/DC – an intoxicating collision of beauty and chaos. And a wonderful, and very deliberate, contrast to its big brother, The South Course.  
Stunning photographs by the super talented who has done so much to promote and capture the magic of this coastline and the golf on offer here. You should follow him because his images will brighten your day.
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golfstagram

18/10/2023

The views across St Patrick’s Links would’ve been enough to take my breath away if the wind whipping in off the Atlantic and across this incredible golf course, hadn’t got their first.
Finding the words to capture the feeling of standing on this jaw-dropping linksland is not easy - dramatic would certainly be one - remote, wild, natural, rugged, epic would be a few others. And yet on their own, none of them feels sufficient to sum up a place that is an epic assault on the senses in the best possible way.
The sound of the waves crashing onto Tramore Beach fills the air, the sweeping expanse of sand hugs the course like child to its mother with the Muckish Mountains beyond. Kite surfers zip across the bay in front of us and the only other thing challenging the wind for speed are the white horses: a lashing breeze driving them home, their tossing manes the white-sea foam. It’s spectacular.
The job done by and team deserves the acclaim it has rightly received. We can’t recommend highly enough. Great pic by .

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16/10/2023

Royal Portrush Golf Club is, without question, one of the world’s great links.
It has, of course, grown accustomed to hosting the game’s greatest players since 1888, Harry Vardon, Gary Player, Arnold Palmer, Tom Watson, Tiger Woods, Rory McIlroy (and many more besides) are just some of the legendary footsteps you will be following in as you walk around Royal Portrush Golf Club.
The town sits on Northern Ireland’s stunning Causeway Coastal Route, where craggy cliffs overlook dramatic white sandy beaches. You’ll find Royal Portrush nestled amid sandhills and boasting views as far as the mountains of County Donegal in the west and to the Scottish island of Islay in the north.
Standing watch over the links are the ruins of the spectacular Dunluce Castle, which dates back to the 13th century and lends its name to Royal Portrush’s iconic Dunluce Links, widely and rightly viewed as one of the world’s great tests of golf. The club dates back to 1888 when The Country Club, as it was known then, was formed by two Scotsmen, George L. Baillie and Thomas Gilroy, as a 9-hole course. 
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Old Tom Morris added a further 9 holes in 1889 and in 1892 the name was changed to The Royal Country Club. It wasn’t until 1895 that it was renamed Royal Portrush Golf Club - the same year it hosted the first professional golf tournament ever held in Ireland. Scotsman Alex ‘Sandy’ Herd, the club’s first professional, defeated Harry Vardon. However, it wasn’t until 1929 that Harry C**t, having made his name at Muirfield and Pine Valley, was brought in to create what is now the Dunluce Links


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16/08/2023

Slate grey clouds over heavenly Hillside.
This stunning image by the brilliant captures the British summer in full swing but also the magic of one of England’s best links.
This is the 16th hole - one of the very best bunker-less holes you’ll find anywhere.

                        

01/08/2023

Fascinating to hear that is to manage To***co Road - one of golf’s most wonderfully unconventional layouts.
Some 25 miles north of Pinehurst, the architecture is bold and unapologetic.
It was built on landed tended to by the weather-worn hands of to***co farmers
The man who took that land and melded To***co Road into the golf course it is today, was Mike Stranz. He wanted it not only to tell a story but for every hole to exude the spirit of the game. Strantz set out to create a course to test a ‘player’s eye, determination, and wits.’ And he has succeeded on all fronts.
And Stranz has managed to weave his magic not on the links land of Scotland or the heathland of Surrey or Berkshire but on the rolling remnants of a quarry in the Sandhills of North Carolina. It’s truly a wonder.
Because of that, you’ll find bunkers as big as craters, greens with slopes as deep as sinkholes and towering sand dunes and plunging pits. There are blind shots, at least five of them, but there is also neverending adventure to be found here.
This stunning photograph is a glimpse of a golf course you simply can’t afford to miss.


***coroad
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26/07/2023

Royal Porthcawl Golf Club, 20 miles west of Cardiff, has been sitting on linksland dunes overlooking the Bristol Channel since 1895.
On this stunning golf course the real hazard, besides the famously penal fairway pot bunkers, is the wind – so severe that on the 1st tee, a 324-yard par 4 into the prevailing breeze, you might wonder how it’s possible to find the fairway.

And if you look to your right, you get a glimpse of one of the many factors which makes this course so fascinating. The opening tee shot crosses 90 degrees with the approach into the 18th hole.
Be mindful not to do what Tiger Woods did here in his last international match as an amateur, the 1995 Walker Cup. He watched as the wind pushed his approach into the parking lot, allowing Gary Wolstenholme to win, 1 up.

19/07/2023

Royal Liverpool’s new 17th hole - known as Little Eye - has predictably been a talking point this week. Named after one of the islands in the Dee estuary visible from the elevated green, it has cavernous bunkers left and right, and massive sand scrapes at the front and back.  
“I’ve played it and I loved it,” Dame Laura Davies said. “It’s a very short par-3 and it’s precision golf, and all the great par 3s in the world that you can talk about - Augusta, the 12th, it’s only something like 140; the Postage Stamp at Troon, a tiny little hole, just a wedge - the great par 3s are often, I think, the shorter ones.
“Royal Liverpool’s new one is going to fit into that category. It’s going to wreak havoc, absolute havoc, without a doubt, because if you don’t hit a precise shot you’re going to get all sorts of trouble from it, and I loved the hole and I’m excited to see how The Open competitors deal with it.
Hoylake is the place which prompted Bernard Darwin, the doyen of golf writers, to say, “Hoylake, blown upon by mighty winds, breeder of mighty champions.” The greatest golfers of their respective generations have won The Open here. Bobby Jones, Peter Thomson, Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy to name a few. 
Royal Liverpool Golf Club will test every aspect of your game and demand every shot you have and plenty you don’t. But its magic and beauty isn’t laid out before you in an overt or obvious way. It asks you to work a little harder than that to really understand it. Hoylake is a golf course which gets better with each passing round –  how many golf courses anywhere in the world can you say that about? I can’t think of very many. Stunning pic by
           

12/07/2023

Wonderful to hear is to host the 2026 Walker Cup.
It’s our firm belief that Lahinch deserves to be considered as a true wonder of the golfing world. It’s a place of impossible beauty, challenge and, above all, adventure. To those who know our game, understand its treasures and know where to look for them, Lahinch - like Ballybunion - is a place of a pilgrimage.
Why? Well, you know it’s very special while you are playing it, of course, but it’s the kind of place you can’t stop thinking about long after you get home. Some of the holes, particularly along the ocean, are the kind of holes where you stand over your ball, screw up his eyes just a little bit, and take aim at a green surrounded by mounds and dunes, knowing anything left is on the beach or in the Atlantic.
The stretch from the 3rd to 11th is as good as anything you will find anywhere in the world, with the greens at three, six, seven, eight and eleven all within a pitch of the ocean. Some holes are truly unique, some are quirky, others are just jaw-droppingly beautiful.
This isn’t a course set up to chew up the golfer and spit them out. No, at Lahinch sheer pleasure is the yardstick, enjoyment is the key. Shouldn’t it always be?
anythinggolf

08/06/2023

The renowned Dunluce Links basking in magic hour.
Founded in 1888, has two Championship Courses – the Dunluce and the lees celebrated but equally enjoyable Valley Course. The views across the North Atlantic are breathtaking but the golf is every bit as spectacular.
The Dunluce, re-designed in 1947 by Harry C**t, is the only course outside the British mainland to host The Open Championship. And it will do again in 2025.
The greens, which are full of slopes, gullies and hollows are scattered among sand dunes which look out raised across the Antrim Coast.
It’s the kind of course that you know is truly special as you’re playing it, but only realise just how brilliant as you relax, with your favourite post-round refreshment, in the clubhouse. affords Absolutely love this stunning snap by - Mel is an incredibly talented photographer. Give him a follow.
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25/05/2023

Hillside when the wind blows will test the very best golfers in the game.
Reader, I am not one of them. I walk off the 18th green and towards the comforting embrace of the white clubhouse here, a beaten man.
Hillside has got the better of me today - the punishing rough, those wonderful tight links fairways, the fantastic bunkers and the slick greens just proved too much.
We’re a matter of weeks away from Hillside hosting the R&A’s prestigious Amateur Championship and I comfort myself by imagining even the best amateurs struggling today.
I’m well aware, there are levels of struggle, of course. At the Amateur Championship, perhaps those competitors might struggle to shoot 64 in this wind. I fell well short of shooting 74 today. And yet, even in the afterglow over a pint in the clubhouse there is still an appreciation for having had the chance to play one England’s finest links, at all. If you ever get the chance you know what to do.
Stunning pic, as always, by

                        

15/05/2023

The PGA Championship returns to Oak Hill's acclaimed and much-changed East Course this week.
This Donald Ross masterpiece has been brilliantly restored by Andrew Green and remains a fierce test of golf. The bunkering is exceptional, the rough juicy and the green shapes are fascinating.
Here are three things you should know about it. Stunning pic by
-Championship History: Oak Hill's East Course has a rich history of hosting prestigious championships. It has been the venue for multiple major tournaments, including the US. Open, the PGA Championship, and the Ryder Cup. The course has earned a reputation as a challenging and fair test of golfing skill, attracting the world's best players.
-Donald Ross Design: The East Course was designed by the legendary golf course architect Donald Ross and opened for play in 1926. Ross is known for his strategic and naturalistic designs that blend seamlessly with the surrounding landscape. The East Course showcases Ross's signature features, including challenging green complexes and strategically placed bunkers.
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-Layout and Features: The East Course spans over 7,400 yards from the championship tees and features a classic parkland layout. It meanders through beautiful tree-lined fairways and presents golfers with a variety of challenging shots. The course places a premium on accuracy and shot placement, with its undulating fairways and well-protected greens demanding precision and strategic decision-making.

29/04/2023

The breathtaking Alcaidesa Links with the iconic rock of Gibraltar beyond.
This stunning setting is the backdrop for the beautiful Alacaidea Golf Resort, a 36-hole destination that will leave you wanting for nothing.
James Hogg, one of our team, has been in Spain this week to see it for himself and his images () speak for themselves. The topography of the Alcaidesa land is stunning with raised tees, incredible panoramic vistas across the Mediterranean.
36 holes of golf, sunshine, breathtaking views of the Big Blue, Gibraltar and Africa and a beautifull hotel - this is truly golf paradise.
In 2011, Alcaidesa Links was included among the 20 best links courses on the European continent by Golf World magazine. But this place has got even better since then. Can’t recommend highly enough.

                           

19/04/2023

Ever heard of golf butlers? At the sumptuous - they’re par for the course.
Situated in the Dominican Republic, Cap Cana has long been considered one of the Caribbean’s most exciting golf destinations, but now it is taking things to the next level.
With “set-jetting” pinned as a travel trend for 2023, meaning more travellers are visiting the destinations they have seen on their screens, golf travel is set to enjoy a boom.
Eden Roc Cap Cana’s golf butlers will help advise on the best golf courses in Dominican Republic and beyond, organise door-to-door equipment delivery, and schedule and confirm tee times and transportation. They will also be able to book in private lessons with the professional and arrange snacks and meals during the day.
If that isn’t enough, Eden Roc Cap Cana has gone a step further, with golf ball massages now on the agenda too, with golfers able to book in a deep body massage performed with golf balls to relieve nerve pressure, sooth muscle pain, and joint discomfort and improve flexibility.
There will also be yoga for golfers, which will help hip flexibility, core strength, focus, and concentration.
What’s not to like?
                        

28/03/2023

Being able to stand on the 12th green at Augusta National and take in the splendour of your surroundings is a rare privilege.
This photograph, taken by , shows the 12th from above, with Hogan’s Bridge in view.
The stone bridge spans Rae’s Creek with three majestic arches taking you from one side to the other. It is laid with artificial turf to help those golfers wearing studs to avoid a slip at a time when they may be trying to avoid a slip of a different kind on their scorecards.
It bears the name of the great Ben Hogan and a plaque which is embedded into the ground at the entrance to the bridge, reads: “This bridge dedicated April 2, 1958, to commemorate Ben Hogan’s record score for four rounds of 274 in 1953 made up of rounds of 70, 69, 66 and 69. This score will always stand as one of the very finest accomplishments in competitive golf and may even stand for all time as the record for The Masters tournament.”
The march of time and, perhaps, technology ensured that would not be the case and yet it’s that history which makes Augusta so special. Hogan’s bridge is an integral part of the magic that begins to build with another Masters on the horizon.
                                              

14/03/2023

The 19th hole never fails to disappoint, does it?
But at Payne’s Valley, named after the late great Payne Stewart, the 19th hole takes on a whole new meaning.
This is a part of the US where Mother Nature went all out, with the stunning Ozarks and the hills of Southern Missouri providing the canvas. The 19th here is next level - a dramatic par-3 which features a narrow island green framed by a dramatic limestone outcrop and waterfalls. It measures a frankly terrifying 202 yards from the tips.
Watching on from above is the clubhouse, a few hundred feet above the green. The hole is named “Big Rock at Payne’s Valley” and it’s every bit as spectacular as it looks. Absolutely stunning image courtesy of
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08/03/2023

TPC Sawgrass, Ponte Vedra Beach - home of The Players Championship.
The course has, from its inception, been a talking point. Many players found it too difficult, too artificial when it opened in 1980. J.C. Snead famously remarked that architect Pete Dye had "ruined a perfectly good swamp." But as time has passed, the appreciation of what Dye created here has grown - so too has the importance of the tournament itself.
The 17th, with its island green, is - of course - the most iconic hole. On tournament days, fans take root and spread like bougainvillea until the area to the left and behind the green is awash with colour. The more spectators there are around the green, the smaller the landing area appears from the tee.
The hole has proved costly for many contenders. In the final round in 1998, Len Mattiace’s tee shot landed in the water. His third shot found a greenside bunker, and he bladed his fourth into the water. He posted a quintuple-bogey 8 on his way to finishing four strokes behind eventual winner, Justin Leonard. In 2007, Sean O’Hair took a one-stroke lead into the final day and arrived at the 17th trailing his playing partner, Phil Mickelson, by two. He hit his tee shot into the water, sent his third shot, from the drop area, into the water, made a 7 and wound up 11th.  
Anything is possible here, although it tends to be the wind, more than the water, that plays on the players’ minds. Which club are you hitting? Glorious pics courtesy of


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06/03/2023

Heavenly Hillside.
Make no mistake, this is a course which stays with you long after you walk off the 18th green.
Hillside sits at the heart of England’s wonderful golf coast. To the southeast, it borders two-time Ryder Cup host Southport & Ainsdale Golf Club. To the north it borders Royal Birkdale, with his iconic art deco clubhouse visible from Hillside’s back 9. Fabulous is five miles to the south, Hesketh five miles to the north and is some 25 miles south of here. It’s an extraordinary concentration of high-quality golf courses.
The back 9 at Hillside has, for many years, attracted great acclaim. There are a series of breath-taking elevated tee shots, a beautiful variety in the terrain and a constant challenge that requires nothing less than your best golf.  And yet the recent work undertaken by architects Mackenzie & Ebert has sought to bring the quality of the front 9 – as well as the look and feel of it – in line with the rest of the golf course by adding drama, shape and substance to the way it plays. The opening two holes run parallel to the railway line, with a stiff right-to-left wind tending to be the prevailing breeze, neither is straightforward.
Played it? Or on your bucket list? It should be. Stunning pic by the super talented


olfcoast #

23/02/2023

There is a stretch of holes at Formby Golf Club which hit rare heights of quality.
From the 5th to the 15th, there are holes that will dazzle you with their beauty. challenge you with their strategy and mark you smile because of their originality.
This is the excellent par-3 10th, captured beautifully by the brilliant . From the tips it plays as long as 215 yards to a green that is well guarded and will feed your ball from the right to left.
Each hole here is played in glorious isolation from the one before and the hole to come.
Each hole has that sense of peace and stillness. At least it did for us. Before you get to this hole and if you get the chance, walk up to the back tees on the 9th and take it all in. The hole laid out before you, the Irish Sea forward and right, the smell of pines, the silence. It’s a sensation that is, quite honestly, hard to put into words. Go and play it.
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22/02/2023

The hallowed fairways of one of the world’s most scenic golf courses.

Banff Springs Golf Club at the Fairmont Banff Springs, possesses a rare combination of strategic beauty and breathtaking backdrops. At this time of year the snow blankets this place but during the warmer months, it’s hard to beat.
Opened in 1911 as a nine-hole course, it was expanded to an 18-hole course by the great Donald Ross in 1924. Stanley Thompson, Canada’s most significant golf architect, created the layout as it plays today. The course demonstrates his appreciation of traditional links golf courses while emphasising the mountain backdrop.
Money was no barrier for the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR), and when unveiled in 1928, the Banff Springs Golf Course was the most expensive ever built. The most iconic hole is known as Devil’s Cauldron, a short par 3 over a glacial lake nestled below the impossibly steep face of Mount Rundle. Devil’s Cauldron is one of the most famously scenic holes in the world of golf.
Stunning photography by the brilliant


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21/02/2023

An inevitable talking point when returns to the Royal Liverpool will be the course’s first new hole for more than half a century.
Named Little Eye, after one of the islands in the Dee estuary visible from the elevated green, it will be the championship’s 17th hole. With tricky bunkers left and right, and vast sand scrapes front and back, Little Eye will ask questions of the world’s greatest players, according to Dame Laura Davies.  
“I’ve played it and I loved it,” she said. “It’s a very short par-3 and it’s precision golf, and all the great par 3s in the world that you can talk about - Augusta, the 12th, it’s only something like 140; the Postage Stamp at Troon, a tiny little hole, just a wedge - the great par 3s are often, I think, the shorter ones.
“Royal Liverpool’s new one is going to fit into that category. It’s going to wreak havoc, absolute havoc, without a doubt, because if you don’t hit a precise shot you’re going to get all sorts of trouble from it, and I loved the hole and I’m excited to see how The Open competitors deal with it.
“It’s going to be the standout hole of the week, not just because of how it’s played, but also how it looks. People will see a lot of birdies, but they’ll also see lots of other much less successful goings-on, which is exactly what you want - especially if that Hoylake wind is blowing a bit.
“It’s a great addition to Hoylake, which I think is one of the tougher golf courses. I suppose I think of it as being pretty relentless, all the holes out there which demand you are really precise, because any wild shots are absolutely punished. I’d say it’s a really tough test.
“At Hoylake, even on a decent, calm day, if you don’t hit the shots you want to hit you’re not going to score at all. It asks you to play every shot in the book.
“The greatest players can make some golf courses look a bit silly, but I don’t think they’ll make Hoylake look silly.” Stunning pic by the brilliant . If you don’t follow him, you should.  

     

15/07/2022

The Old Course, St Andrews understandably tops golf bucket lists the world over. Here's one way to get a game on the world's most famous links St Andrews Links - have you tried it?
https://thewanderinggolfers.com/st-andrews-golf-old-course-singles/

St Andrews golf: securing a tee time at The Old Course, St Andrews is something every golfer dreams of. Zack Pollack took on the challenge