In 2023, Italy will host its first Ryder Cup. The Marco Simone Golf Club, just outside Rome, is staging the biennial contest between Europe and the United States, and while most fans will base themselves in the Eternal City for the contest, those looking to lengthen their trip would do well to consider…
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Hidden away on the County Wicklow coast, just south of Brittas Bay, you’ll The European Club – a links like no other. It’s a true one-off, a place where the rules of how to design and run a golf club haven’t applied since Pat Ruddy, the effervescent owner and designer, circled over this…
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Rosslare Golf Club is bathed in sunshine as we walk up the final hole of a round that will live long in the memory. It was Walt Whitman who wrote, ‘keep your face always toward the sunshine and the shadows will fall behind you.’ That was certainly how our day on this charming,…
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For golfers the world over, Royal Dornoch Golf Club represents a unique call to adventure. It’s a pilgrimage which requires commitment, dedication and patience. After all this golfing outpost, tucked away in a stunning corner of the Scottish Highlands, sits 50 miles north of Loch Ness and just eight degrees below in the Arctic…
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In my head the atmospheric Old Course was going to be lit up by autumnal sunshine, showing off the home of golf in all its picture postcard perfection. In reality, the stoating rain that had threatened to derail my morning round at the Crail Golfing Society, had followed us up the Fife coast.…
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It’s no surprise to find the Scots have more than 100 words for rain – several sprang immediately to mind as I arrived at Crail Golfing Society, the seventh oldest club on the planet. It was a dreich morning, the darkest and dankest of starts to an autumnal day at the easternmost point…
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Western Gailes Golf Club may once have been a hidden gem on Scotland’s Ayrshire coast, but these days is better described as a crown jewel. It offers a pure links experience shaped by wind, sand, and sea. Renowned for its natural routing, rugged beauty, and rich history, it challenges golfers in so many…
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Tradition and romance are synonymous with Prestwick. This is, after all, the birthplace of The Open Championship itself. It may have hosted the last of its 24 Opens in 1925, but the significance of this club to our game, and the aura which surrounds it, endures to this very day.…
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It would be understandable if Dundonald Links felt just a little threatened by Ayrshire’s embarrassment of golfing riches. After all it sits within minutes of storied Open venues such as Royal Troon and Prestwick Golf Club. Another, Turnberry, is 30 minutes down the coast. Wonderful Western Gailes is within a wedge. Barassie, Glasgow…
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A day or two at The Machrie Hotel is all it takes to understand why so many who visit Islay leave a piece of their heart behind. The idyllic isolation from the everyday would, on its own, be the perfect tonic to the bustle of modern life. But when you combine that with…
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There’s a rare sense of stillness and tranquillity as you walk Woodhall Spa’s iconic Hotchkin Course. This secluded, unassuming corner of Lincolnshire may be home to one of the best inland golf courses on the planet but there’s no fuss or fanfare here. The contrary is true, in fact. From the moment you…
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There’s no escaping that the Bracken Course at Woodhall Spa Golf Club is, like many other fabulous venues the world over, will always exist in the shadow of its more celebrated big brother. The New and The Old Course, St Andrews. The Cashen Course and The Old, Ballybunion. The Castle Course and The…
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As I walk towards the 18th green at Royal St George’s Golf Club, through the funnel of Open Championship grandstands either side of me, I allow myself a moment to take it all in. The magnificent lunar landscape of linksland here is exactly as I remember it. The vast dunes, verdant fairways and…
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A par-3 opener: 200 yards, into the wind, eight bunkers around the green, Walter Hagen looking on – Southport and Ainsdale Golf Club has it all. Ok, so I made that last bit up – sort of – but we’ll come back to Mr Hagen shortly. Southport and Ainsdale Golf Club is one…
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Ballybunion Golf Club, perched on Ireland’s Way Atlantic Way, is a place of legend—and rightly so. The Wandering Golfers journeyed to County Kerry and found a course carved by nature, sculpted by wind, and soaked in myth. Ballybunion doesn’t just stay with you, it lives on in your head and your heart. Until…
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Royal Portrush has the honour of being the only club outside mainland Britain to host the Open Championship. The Wandering Golfers went to Antrim to play it a matter of weeks before the 2019 edition came to town…
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Augusta National Golf Course is, unquestionably, unique. The vibrant natural beauty, the stunningly manicured fairways and greens, the magic and the mystique of Magnolia Lane. A tradition unlike any other, as the saying goes. And yet if you look just beneath the surface, it’s clear that deep within its DNA, the ancestry of…
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If Scotland is the home of golf, Ireland the luxury holiday villa you can’t wait to go back to, what of England? Scotland and Ireland are quite rightly lauded as mythical golf destinations the world over – St Andrews, Ballybunion, Royal Dornoch, Lahinch – the names trip off the tongue. But a new…
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Like Rome, Sheffield is built on seven hills. High on one of them, on the cusp of the Peak District National Park, you’ll find the beautiful Hallamshire Golf Club. Perhaps you haven’t heard of it before now – unlike Italy, this has never been a part of the world comfortable shouting too loudly…
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There is an inescapable sense of class about everything at Formby Golf Club. You feel it from the moment you turn off Victoria Road, one of Merseyside’s most exclusive enclaves, and into Golf Road which wends its way towards the grand old clubhouse. You feel it in the warmth of the welcome, you…
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