Category: Course Type (Page 35 of 45)

This is the course type; where a course is a mixture, i.e. parkland/heathland, the predominant type is used.

43. Charleton. 7th June 2016.

June 7, 2016 / Moly McMillan

A rather bland open parkland course, but with magnificent greens – it’s a cunundrum!

Round £32. Par 71 (yellow). Value (out of 5) – 3

Charleton House on the East Neuk of Fife was built in 1759 and after passing through several hands is now owned by a Swedish family and it was Baron John Bonde (1918–2009) who established the golf course and small picturesque club house in 1994. The Estate house and terraced garden, with outstanding Firth of Forth views, is operated as an events location.

Short par 4 17th tee with Charleton house in the distance.

Firstly, I’d point out that unlike the club’s website boast, this is definately not in my opinion “Scotland’s Premier Parkland Course”, a rather embarrassing claim, given the competition. Given that the course was opened by ex-US president George Bush Snr, one can’t help conclude that the Bonde family have many good contacts!

The difficult short par 3 5th green.

Charleton is actually the most open of parkland courses, in fact it has some of the widest fairways you’re likley to find in Fife. Therefore it is a good course for Society outings, without the need for several balls in your bag.

The course is a bit of a conundrum, since although the tee shots are relatively mundane, when you get to the greens, many of them are rather magnificent; several are up to 50 yards from front to back, some guitar shaped narrowing to only 6 yards wide and there are several positions on the greens that you might have to pitch over the fringes to get to the flags. There are also some very severe sloping banks at the sides of the greens, which combined with deep bunkers, make the approach play some of the most challenging around.

The trecherous green at the par 4 14th.

There are some real highlights, but for me the most difficult were the par 3s, only 3 of them, but on each occasion I struck what I thought were excellent shots, only to discover my ball in devilish greenside bunkers. I also must mention the 14th green – it measures 50 yards front to back, and has several very damging bunkers – I took 4 to get out of one of them!

The guitar shaped 15th green – a par 4.

Therefore, the course without greens gets no more than 2/5 for value, whereas the greens are 5/5 alone, giving a rounded 3/5 value score. It was rounded down because the teeing grounds were in poor condition when I played.

The par 3 6th green at Charleton

I gaurantee if you play at Charleton, you’ll want to re-play many of your greenside chips and long putts. You can see from my card, of 99, I found the greens a challenge, having 3 putted 6 times!

Some Facts

Course Type: Parkland/Woodland

Par 71 (2 par 5s, 13 par 4s, 3 par 3s)

Distance (yellow) 5989 yards

Moly’s Gross Score 99

Moly’s scorecard at Charleton adding to 99, with two 9s.

42. Murrayshall Lynedoch. 6th June 2016.

June 7, 2016 / Moly McMillan

The “junior” Murrayshall course provides a surprisingly outstanding challenge

Round £30 ( variable on-line). Par 68. Value (out of 5) – 4

The Murrayshall estate, first built in 1664, was established as a commercially successful Country House hotel in the early 1970s, following the sale of the estate by the Norrie-Millar family, of whom Francis Norrie-Millar was one of the key instrumentalists in building the General Accident insurance company in nearby Perth, only 3 miles to the west of Murrayshall.

Approach to the par 4 second - requiring a well placed tee shot, into a narrow green over a deep ditch.

Approach to the par 4 2nd – requiring a well placed tee shot, into a narrow green over a deep ditch.

The esteemed golf architect Hamilton J Strutt (grandson of James Braid’s foreman) designed the original Championship course in the 70s, and returned to design the Lynedoch course which opened in 2000. The latter course is named after Thomas Graham, aka Lord Lynedoch, who became second in command to the Duke of Wellinton’s Armies in the early 1800s.

Playing the Lynedoch actually reminds you of the Duke of Wellington when importalised in song for “marching them up to the top of the hill, and marching them down again!” There’s plenty of hills to march up and down on the Lynedoch course, which feels longer than its 5279 yards off the white tees. I wouldn’t recommend carrying a full bag!

The demanding SI 1, par 5 14th hole on The Lynedoch

The demanding SI 1, narrow par 5 14th hole on The Lynedoch

The Lynedoch Course really surprised me for both its quality and character, given that it is very much the junior course at Murrayshall. It is very difficult to give a single course type categorisation, and is a mix of woodland and parkland/medow, and has some wonderful highland views to the north. It also has a fair amount of bracken, ditch/water hazards and Disney sized bunkers on some holes.

Given its all round quality and design, it’s arguably better value than the longer Championship course. It has many memorable holes, starting on the first, a dog leg right par 4, which is much harder than the stroke index of 10 would suggest. The second, a shorter par 4, starts to lay out the need for accuracy needed here. Then the 3rd is the first of 6 delighful par 3s, with a hugh amount of variety.

The long par 3 15th tee on The Lynedoch, with deep ditch just visible on the left - cant impagine many 2s here!

The long par 3 15th tee on The Lynedoch, with deep ditch just visible on the left – can’t imagine many 2s here!

My favourite holes were the 14th, 15th and 16th, with stroke indexes 1, 5 and 3 repectively – I rather suspect these holes have defined many match play games here. The 15th is particularly interesting played as a long par 3 (212 yards) off white but as a short par 4 (294 yards) off yellow. It requires the most accurate tee shot, due to a right to left sloping fairway into a deep ravine/ditch – which I had to chip out of!

View from green at the par 3 15th (although par 4 from yellow tees)

The course was in excellent all round condition when I played and I had a very mercurial round of 88 (net 2 over), including 3 birdies for the second time in my life, but unfortunately 2 quadruple and 1 triple bogie! I think this scorecard rather sums up the Lynedoch course – lots of opportunity and hazard, but very true greens!

I highly recommend playing here.

Some Facts

Course Type: Parkland/Woodland

Par 68 (2 par 5s, 10 par 4s, 6 par 3s)

Distance (white) 5279 yards

Moly’s Gross Score 88

A mercurial 88, with 3 birdies and 2 quadruple bogies!

41. Letham Grange Glens. 3rd Jun 2016. CLOSED

June 4, 2016 / Moly McMillan

Mainly open parkland course, with a tough finishing stretch

Round £30 ( variable on-line). Par 68. Value (out of 5) – 2.5

Letham Grange, on the outskirts of Arbroath, has likely had more written about it in court proceedings than in golfing magazines! It is one of the failed attempts in Scotland to create an American style Golf & Country Club Estate similar to Gleneagles, or Wentworth in Surrey. Opened in 1987 as a full resort, the hotel and many facilities are long since closed.

Approach to the 2nd on the Glens at Letham Grange, a typical open parkland hole.

The club members, several living in the many fine houses which still adorn the fairways, now do a great job at keeping the Old course and the smaller Glens course open.

The Glens Course opened in 1992 and is at 5528 yards, much shorter and less demanding than the Old course. The parkland layout is very open for the first 12 holes, but the stretch from the 13th to 17th is much more challenging and will dictate your scorecard.

The 9th green at Letham Grange Glens course

In particular the short par 4 14th requires a very acurate tee shot; the dog leg 15th needs a straight shot of about 200 yards to the tree lined dog-leg; and the 17th is a pretty scary drive down an avenue of trees about 40 yards wide.

The condition of the course was pretty reasonable, with the highlight being the very well maintained teeing grounds. However, the bunkers though were actually terrible, with a thin covering of grainy sand over hard packed earth – unfortunately I found several bunkers eventually realising the only way to play them was to chip the ball cleanly off the sand.

The difficult to find small 15th green, part of the difficult stretch of 5 holes from 13 to 17 on the Glens course

The price of the Glens is £30 per round and I was able to play on the Carnoustie Country offer, and paid only £15. At the full price its not the best value by any means in Angus.

I had a good round with 37 stableford points (using the new 9/10s allowance), and played to my new handicap of 18, which included an 8 on the par 4 3rd, needing to take 2 shots to get out of a greenside bunker.

Some Facts

Course Type: Parkland

Par 68 (2 par 5s, 10 par 4s, 6 par 3s)

Distance (white) 5528 yards

Moly’s Gross Score 86

Moly’s Letham Grange Glens Scorecard – 86 (net par off 18)

40. The Renaissance Club. 27th May 2016

May 31, 2016 / Moly McMillan

A new world class links course to rival its older neighbours

Round by Invitation. Par 71. Quality (out of 5) – 4.5

The Renaissance is a work of beauty - the 10th taken on a nicer day than when I played.

The Renaissance is a work of beauty – the 9th taken on a nicer day than when I played.

The Renaissance Club is one of a small but growing number of exclusive private member golf clubs in Scotland. It combines a world class golf course and facilities with an American style family friendly country club set up, with fine dining, although the latter type of country club is also now very common in South Africa and Australia.

The course sits just east of Muirfield, its famous neighbour, on the North Berwick coastline.

The tree enclosed 4th green – typical of some of the great links courses in Northern Scotland

The architect of The Renaissance, Tom Doak, is renowned for his use of natural contours and not “bulldozing” the land and he has laid the course around several copses of existing trees; therefore this is a course that looks much more like parts of the great links of Carnoustie, Dornoch or Nairn Dunbar, than the treeless Muirfield.

The large 8th Green at The Renaisannce

The result is a quite magnificent layout that in my opinion will stand the test of time. With widely different tee options, this can be played at 6121 yards off yellow, 6766 yards off white, and a monster 7293 yards off the professional championship blue tees. It also has 2 very cleverly mixed white/yellow layouts of around 6500 yards, each recommended for different westerly or easterly winds (see the scorecard below for details). All layouts have a par of 71.

The tee view from the stroke index par 4 8th.

The course was in excellent condition as expected and although spread out over a much greater area than, by comparison, Muirfield, the green to tee walks were still short some almost in the St Andrews way, I suspect by design.

The highlight of the course for me was the magnificent greens which had combinations of large and subtle borrows, almost all with very tricky surrounds. Combined with well positioned and deep bunkers, I suspect only the greatest of short game players would win a Scottish Open here. The Renaissance would be a fine competition venue, with many locations for grandstands which would afford viewing of more than one hole.

The majestic 10th tee view – I lost a ball into the left cliffs on the one occasion I failed to heed my playing partner’s advice!

I was hosted by the local professional Ross Dixon, whose wise on-course advice enabled me to play to within one shot of my new lower handicap of 19, which has reduced by 4 shots following a number of lessons by Ross himself, the best measure of golf teaching.

The downhill par 3 11th, with a view over the links land

The Renaissance layout provides changes of direction on almost every hole, and therefore the difficulty changes likewise. There are many great holes, but the run of 5 holes from the 7th through 11th were for me the architectural and aesthetic highlight; a long par 5 7th, the stroke index 1 8th hole, followed by 2 excellent par 3s (the infinity greened 9th, and the downhill 11th), which sandwich the cliff hugging shortish par 4 10th. All these holes can be viewed using the excellent interactive club website application here.

Ross Dixon, after striking another ball far down the middle at the par 4 14th.

It was a real privilege to play The Renaissance and I hope that the venue can be used for competitions so that the wider public can see at close hand what a wonderful course it is. Although it was a private club, it was very far from stuffy, in fact I couldn’t help noticing what a wonderfully relaxing and very family oriented atmosphere existed around the club. There is a lot that the older established clubs around Scotland could learn from The Renaissance.

Some Facts

Course Type: Links

Par 71 (4 par 5s, 9 par 4s, 5 par 3s)

Distance (yellow) 6121 yards

Moly’s Gross Score 91

Stableford (7/8th allowance) 33

Moly’s scorecard at The Renaissance Club – Gross 91

Category: Course Type (Page 35 of 45)

43. Charleton. 7th June 2016.

Par 71 (2 par 5s, 13 par 4s, 3 par 3s)

42. Murrayshall Lynedoch. 6th June 2016.

Par 68 (2 par 5s, 10 par 4s, 6 par 3s)

41. Letham Grange Glens. 3rd Jun 2016. CLOSED

Par 68 (2 par 5s, 10 par 4s, 6 par 3s)

40. The Renaissance Club. 27th May 2016

Par 71 (4 par 5s, 9 par 4s, 5 par 3s)

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