Formby Hall Golf Club - Southport

Formby is a great parkland layout with very nice views from the course including wonderful greens and well placed bunkers as well as a few lakes protecting a number of holes. The whole resort was great from the condition of the course, the rooms we stayed in and the hearty breakfast the next morning to the refreshing leisure facilities including sauna and swimming pool.

The first hole is a straight par 4 with no less than nine bunkers so accuracy is the key to a good start followed by a decent par 3 that can be tricky with a right to left wind pushing shots towards the lake. The next five holes are affected by water including the short sixth with danger in front and behind with the closing hole of the front nine has more water along the whole length of the fairway.

The back nine continues where the front left off with water all along the left hand side of the tenth fairway and the pond in front of the eleventh hole makes a tricky approach to the green. You have to drive over water on the twelth, avoid the bunkers then hit a green that sits between two lakes. The fourteenth offers a good chance for a birdie if you can keep it on the fairway while the short sixteenth over the lake can easily provide a few drop shots.

Water is the major hazard once again on the closing holes, protecting the seventeenth green and following the entire length of the eighteenth fairway to a green protected by five bunkers.

The fairways were in great condition at Fomrby, so were the greens and with four sets of tees on each hole this course can cater for all levels of golfer.