Frilford Heath (Blue)

In the early 1990s, after Frilford Heath had secured a substantial parcel of farmland next to the existing Red course, architect Simon Gidman set to work fashioning a third 18-hole layout for the golf club. To gain access to the acreage for the new Blue course, four of the holes on the Red had to be redesigned, which caused some disruption at the time, but it was a small price to pay for the club’s ambitious expansion to a 54-hole golf complex.

The Blue is perhaps a more demanding test than its older Frilford siblings, featuring greens that are contoured and wetlands that are hard to ignore, placing a premium on accurate driving and approach play. Whilst it’s unashamedly a modern layout, there’s still a nod to old-fashioned golf design here and there with short par fours on the front nine at the 2nd and 5th holes.

It’s reckoned around 80,000 cubic metres of soil was moved when creating the Blue course though now, more than thirty years after it was built, the fairways look as natural as those on either the Red or the Green layouts.

Measuring 6,750 yards, the Blue course has been used as a venue for Europro Tour events and it also co-hosted the English Amateur Open, along with the Red course, in 2013.

Simon Gidman (formerly of Hawtree Design) is not a prolific architect, but his pièce de résistance at The Centurion Club in Hertfordshire (opened in 2013) has done his credentials no harm whatsoever.