The first hole requires a solid mid iron over the ninth green to what looks like a very small target cut into the bottom of a hill and protected by a bunker front right. Ken pulled his left while I pushed mine a little right, we were both playing with injuries by the way, Ken had a bad foot and I could not fully grip the shaft of the club with my right hand after a finger injury on the weekend, which was the main reason we chose to only play a nine hole course.
The green is actually bigger than it looks on the first hole so if you aim at what looks like the left side of the putting surface you are actually lining up for the middle of it. You have to walk back towards the ninth green to find the tee for the second hole, over 400 yards stroke index 1, the fairway runs along the side of the hill adjacent to the road. The left to right sloping of the fairway means that everything rolls towards the rough which lays between the course and the road, except my ball, which runs out of fairway along the left edge and gets stuck in the rough leaving me with an approach shot that I now need to draw if I am to find the green.
With the ball a few inches below my feet in the rough on the slope of the hill I attempt to play a draw, I get a hook, it hits a tree on the left about 100 yards further up but luckily bounces back out onto the fairway. If I had aimed at the road it may have ended up bounding along the fairway towards the green, when I eventually reach the putting surface I manage to one putt to halve the hole.
The course now turns away from the road and goes up the hillside, the members call the walk up to the hole on this par 3 'Cardiac Hill' so I don't think I need to describe the change in elevation. It takes Ken a little longer than usual to get up to the green with his foot slowing him down but we are lucky to not have anyone behind us. We halve the hole in five and move on to a par 4 that is played in the opposite direction of the second over what could be described as a gully with a road running along it to a sloping right to left fairway.
If you manage to accurately find the fairway without your ball running off left, you now face an even more pin point approach shot to a thin elongated green cut into the side of the hill. I just miss to the right but the ball does not roll down the hill onto the green as I thought it may have done which leaves me with a tricky chip that I hit too hard and end up off the other side of the green. Ken wins the hole with a 5 while I pace out the green, it is only ten paces wide but three times as long.
The fifth hole is a blind short par 3, the green resides in what looks like a bomb crater so anything hit in roughly the right direction gathers down towards the desired target. We later asked the greenkeeper if it was a bomb crater, he told us that the area used to be mined for chalk which in years to come created the depressions and changes in elevation that the people who created the golf course used so well.
The solitary par 5 on the course rises gently to what feels like the top of the hill and with a good tee shot is definitely reachable in two. I lose the hole to a 6 from Ken after a horrid slice off the tee which resulted in it probably ending up in someone's back garden.
Number seven is played back over the sixth green down the gentle slope of the hill but watch out for a hidden ditch that runs along the left hand side of the fairway. Being two holes down the pressure is on me to try and win the remaining three holes. Ken finds the rough behind some trees on the right and has no option to chip out sideways, I on the other hand send a cracking drive down the middle of the fairway to find the perfect position for an approach to the blind green.
Ken plays first and hits a good shot, we think it should be on the front of the green, if we could see it. My approach is not as good, I manage to find the trees to the left of the green which results in me losing the match 3&2. We play on though and suddenly my golf improves, the eighth hole is a 188 yard par 3 that plays more like 200 with the change in elevation, I hit a glorious 5 wood to the back of the green and two putt for a par, which wins the hole.
The ninth hole has probably the most picturesque view, 193 yards from the hill down to the green, we had a slight breeze against us so I decided to take a 5 wood again, hit another solid shot but the wind did not hold it up enough and it ended up behind the green in the rough in front of the first tee. Ken topped his tee shot and it dived into the trees that lined the hillside, when we emerged from the path at the bottom of the hill he was surprised to find his ball just 20 yards short of the green, it had bounded all the way down the hill and not been held up by the trees at all. My chip out of the rough was a good one and I managed to save par and win the hole after Ken got a four.
A few of the greens were suffering from a fungus infection which made putting a little difficult if it happened to be on your line, the greenkeeper said that the club was in the process of changing ownership with the last owners not spending any money on the course while this change was made. He assured us the greens would be back to their best in a couple of months and said the best time to visit was on a Monday or a Wednesday if you wanted the course to yourself.
I did not play particularly well but still enjoyed the round, this is a cracking little nine hole course where scoring well requires accurate play, I am sure I will visit it again in the future.
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