One of the great attributes to a trip to Lancashire is that one can play eight good to great golf courses while staying at the same hotel.  During my three trips to the Liverpool-Southport-Blackpool area I asked my hosts the courses I should play in the area.  They replied with the well-known courses which included the three Royals, Formby, Hillside, West Lancashire, Wallasey, and Southport & Aimsdale.  I would then ask them for the next tier of courses and they would respond with Manchester, Fairhaven, St. Anne’s Old, Ormskirk, and Formby Ladies.  Of this next tier I had previously played St. Anne’s Old and was scheduled to play Formby Ladies.  I was told to steer clear of a few others listed in the top twenty.

On this trip after playing Delamere Forest in the morning, we made our way to Fairhaven.

I was eager to see and play Fairhaven which I knew had been used as a qualifier for  The Open.  I also knew that James Braid had offered advice in its design and that other architects had been involved through the years.  As it is close to Royal Lytham & St Annes I wanted to compare the two even if I knew it would not be as good.  Finally, I was intrigued by the routing which has the entire front nine residing inside the back nine.

Overall, I was disappointed by Fairhaven.  While I expected it to be flat, it is among the flattest courses I have played in England.  I thought there would be more of an effort to offer more distinguishing features such as raised greens, more contouring on the surfaces of greens, some ripples in the fairways and better mounding near greens. As for defense, while there are a few grouping of trees along some holes, I did not feel they influenced play very much.  The rough was not difficult although perhaps due to a dry summer.  Overall I thought it to be one of the least strategic courses I have played for a course that has an overall favorable reputation.

While the routing is both unique and interesting, the design of the holes is relatively boring with mainly straight holes. I counted only four holes that are doglegs with every other hole essentially straight.

At Fairhaven there was only one hole I found to be visually attractive which is the well bunkered par 3 seventeenth which has eight bunkers around all but the back of the one green that is truly raised.

The one redeeming feature of the course is the bunkering as it is very good both in number and placement.  However, the bunkers are not overly penal.  Perhaps the club wants to ensure they are not like Royal Lytham’s which are in a class of their own for difficulty.  Yet, the placement of bunkers at Fairhaven is good enough that anyone trying to pursue a career as a golf course architect should visit Fairhaven and study them.  While today’s modern architects have often relied on very large, blowout-style bunkers to make a visual statement, Fairhaven presents a wonderful roadmap for defending a course through its more traditional style of bunkers.  This is best exemplified by holes one, six, nine, fifteen and seventeen, although every hole is done well.