I had a really nice welcome into the brand new pro shop and clubhouse at Farnham, and the golf course matched this!

A heathland/parkland hybrid is often likely to get overshadowed in this part of the world, and I think Farnham does go under the radar a bit. The course starts and finishes on the parkland, with the stretch of holes 5 through 12 over the road being more heathland and definitely the superior part of the property.

The first is a par 5 away from the clubhouse and sweeping left over the crest of a hill, before 2 comes back towards the clubhouse with a long par 4. Currently this is a blind approach which I quite enjoyed (with a long iron/wood but plenty of room to run the ball in), but the club are currently building a new green which will be visible from the fairway and definitely will improve the flow of the routing. 4 is a slightly awkward short par 4 which might be improved by taking some of the right trees out, although I imagine they are there for safety reasons.

5 is where the fun starts - I loved the raised green tucked into the hill with a vicious false front there. 7 and 8 are two fun short 4s and I enjoyed what felt like the first bigger undulations on 9. 10 11 12 feature a bit less heather than the preceding 4 holes but are all still enjoyable. There are some notable holes on the way in once back over the road, the pick of which were the 2 par 5s 14 and 18 for me.

Farnham was in good condition throughout the course despite the wet weather - I can see it being really fun in the summer with the heather in bloom and a bit of fire in the fairways and greens.

The club are making great efforts to improve the whole experience, and this has extended to attempting to regenerate some heather on the clubhouse side of the road. I would really encourage this to continue - it would be great to make the whole course as close to the open heathland it probably once was as possible!