NC500: the best golf courses on Scotland’s top road trip
The North Coast 500 explores some of the most beautiful wilderness on earth. The Wandering Golfers look at some of the best golf courses on the NC500…
Formby a memorable experience rich in history and class
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 sense it as you take in the history that hangs from the walls of the clubhouse and shimmers in the impressive trophy cabinets. The golf course is, as you’d expect, majestic. Even when you’re in the clubhouse it’s hard to take your eyes off it. It waits…
Alluring Alwoodley one of England’s great courses
Alwoodley Golf Club is a place where loyalty is par for the course. Ever since the great Dr Alister MacKenzie – the man who would go on to design Augusta National – became a founder member here in 1907, there has been a sense that devotion has been sewn into the springy fairways and perfect greens at this Leeds golf club. Not only is that the case out on this truly wonderful Yorkshire golf course, where the club has gone to great lengths to retain the hallmarks of strategy, variety and natural beauty that were cornerstones of Mackenzie’s design. But…
Luke Donald: future world No 1’s timely reality check
I remember the moment I realised my childhood dream of winning The Open was in tatters – it was all Luke Donald’s fault. Not that he knew it. I was 14 and I was good at golf. But I was soon to discover I was not good enough. From the age of 7, I had dreamt of lifting the Claret Jug and seven years on I told myself that there was still hope. “Nick Faldo did not pick up a club until he was 14 and you already play off 5,” I told myself. “You are talented, you work hard…