Aberdovey and Harlech - Golf in Wales

by

Turk Pipkin

(In 1995 I was in England for the British Open (The Open Championship as they call it) and to do a publicity tour for the British publication of my golf novel, Fast Greens. After about thirty interviews at BBC London, I hopped on a train for a golf vacation in Wales. At the time I intended to sell this story to one of the golf mags, but I got so busy I never finished it. Here it is in all it's rough-formed glories and omissions.)

With Americans by the thousands having discovered the golf treasures of Scotland and Ireland, and with many more now avoiding the crowded summer season, it can only be a matter of time before the true links enthusiasts discover the fine seaside courses of Wales. Just a few hours from London by train, Wales boasts coarses like Royal Porthcawl in the South - a true championship level challenge - and exotic sounding courses like Llandundo and Porthmadog in the north. On the coastline between these extremes, however are two of the finest old courses in all the British Isles, Aberdovey and Royal St. David.

You’ll know you’re in for a real links golf experience when you walk the hundred feet from the train station to the Aberdovey golf Club and are first greeted by the sight of cows grazing on the course.

England’s most celebrated golf writer Bernard Darwin wrote of witnessing as a child the construction of the course in the 1880’s when his uncles sent him to a shop in town to buy flower pots which they buried in the ground for the holes, the general locations of which are still in use today. "My Beloved Aberdovey," Darwin would write almost seventy years later, by which time when he had seen and written about every major golf course in the world.

The course is only little changed in modern times. The original clubhouse burned down two years ago, but is currently being rebuilt, and the huge dunes that originally separated the links from the sea, because of tank practice in WWII, are no longer quite so high. But the marshes, ditches, mounded fairways, and sheep burrowed bunkers still present challenges at every hole, and the small undulating greens roll as true as any in Britain.

At 6400 yards, without the wind the course may not present the hardest challenge in Wales, but chances are the wind will be rolling down the course from the North, and you’ll be happy to come back with all of your wits and most of your balls.

Number three, a blind par three straight over a series of dunes is as fun as the old game gets. My first ball found the beach - not a trap, the beach of the Irish sea, but a second shot ended only two feet from the cup. The old periscope that used to let golfers on the tee know when the green was clear has been replaced by a bell to be rung when finished putting. If you make par or birdie, you’ll probably want to ring it more than once.

Number 12 is another brilliant par three, just 149 yards to a green elevated way in the dunes. Coming up the hill you’re greeeted with a breathtaking expanse of sea and beach, though my putting was definitely distracted by the topless sunbathers - Would you look at the ‘bird,s’ my Welsh playing partner told me.

A new elevated tee on the 539 yard par 13 also has a greatview of the ocean, but pay attention to your drive. At 288 yards, 16 is a hole that the hotshots love to try to drive, though if you don’t make it, you’ll likely find yourself chipping straight up a steep hill from a cinder road.

Mind the local train on the tee shot from 18, and the next thing you know you’ll be back at the clubhouse asking if you can go round again.

Aberdovery is a friendly little burg, perched on the edge of the ocean and accustomed to visitors, though not many make it here from the states. Just mentioning that you’re a golfer from America in the Plastelig or Britannia Pubs will likely find you stood to more pints of lager or stout than you can possibly drink.

Greens fees are around $30, and good hotel rooms can be found for $30 to $70 dollars with a huge breakfast at the Trefidian Hotel, overlooking the course, or a twenty minute walk away at the Penhelig Arms or Plas Penhelig. There’s fine Welsh food at all these hotels, but the Welsh lamb and fresh vegetables at the golf course is not to be missed

Wales most famous golfer, Ian Woosnam, spends a great deal of time playing at Aberdovey, living in a caravan or summer trailer parked near the course, and hanging out with the local chaps at the pubs. Aberdovey is a town where they cherish their traditions of the game, and where they’ll welcome any other golfer who does likewise. What more can you ask?

Bring your handicap certificate, and watch out for those hidden bunkers.

To get to Aberdovey on the train from London, you must change in Birmingham?? and again in Mahuncneth, with the final two hours through the mountains and farmslands of Wales truly breathtaking.

Getting back on the train at Aberdovey, the little train hugs the lovely coastline, stopping at several picturesque family vacation destinations, with the mountains reaching straight down to long stretches of white sand, and clusters of sailboats dotting every harbor.

Before reaching the old course at Porthmadog, you’ll likely be stopping in the town of Harlech for a look at Harlech castle and a round or two on Royal St. David’s.

Royal St. David’s

Located in the ancient welsh town of Harlech, Royal St. David’s was also estblished during the British golfing boom of the early 1890’s, and has since been the sight of numerous Welsh and British national competitions.

Green fees are 26 pounds weekdays, 32 on the weekends with discounts for after 3:30, a great deal considering you could probably play 36 in the summer when it doesn’t get dark till almost ten. Both the Castle Hotel and the Cottage Castle hotel have bargain accomodations, and the food at the Cottage Castle is truly major league.

With daunting rough in all directions but boasting a par of just 36 -33, I began my round by hoping to break 80 and soon switch my goal to completing the round without runnout out of balls. Though the fairways are wide and well-maintained by links standards, the rough is comprised of ankle to waist-deep masses of matted grass, flowers, weeds, brambles, gorse, heather, dense evergreen bushes and even the occassional tree. Add to these troubles ditches, dikes, bogs, bikes and people, as well as paths made from sea shells, cinders and hard rock slag dug by hand from the cold mountains of Wales. Also present are thousands of swales, humps and hillucks, holes dug by squirrels, burrows made by countless rabbits, and massive grass-covered dunes that seem nearly as high as Harlech Castle which overlooks your travails with cold indifference. But so much for the first hole.

In all seriousness, the challenge is further toughened by over a hundred bunkers filled with fluffy sand, and lastly their is 6400 yards of the most glorious links course that I have seen in many a round.

After losing my very first tee shot, i settled down a bit for the fairly flat front nine, and made extremely rare back-to-back birdies on 7 and 8, both par fives just under 500 yards.

By this time I had joined up with an older gentleman who said he’d been vacationing here off and on for fifty years, and though he hit each of his shots almost exactly half the distance I hit mine, he still managed par or bogie on nearly every hole.

Things really get interesting at number 14 when the course veers into the dunes on a 218 yard blind, uphill, against the wind par 3 surrounded by low dunes. I made 5 and was glad to have it. Fifteen is a 415 yard par four, mostly blind tee shot with a large dog-leg right. I blistered my drive and still found myself 195 uphill, wind in my face, to yet another blind green. Ripping a five wood, we found the ball five feet from the pin for my third birdie of the day.

My playing parner then began to hoop and holler as if I were the finest golfer he’d ever seen or, as the case turned out to be, as if his chip had just disappeared into a rabbit hole from which it was never retrieved.

I slogged homeward through the dunes, nearly putting my tee shot on the par three eighteenth into the 90 year old clubhouse, then making a double for a round of 78, my finest score ever on a true links challenge, and my second round of one of those fine and glorious days of golf that you just have to write home about.