Harpenden

Harpenden Golf Club was first established in 1894 but the club moved to its current site at Hammonds End in 1931 to enjoy a course co-designed by F.G Hawtree and J.H Taylor. The enduring design duo laid out around fifty courses in the years between the wars and Harpenden is a fine example of their work.

Three golfing icons, Abe Mitchell, Percy Allis and Arthur Havers teamed up with the newly appointed Harpenden professional, George Randall, in an exhibition match to herald the opening of the new course. Arthur Havers remarkably made the first hole-in-one at the par three 8th (then the 15th).

Set in 150 acres of gently undulating parkland on the south-western edge of Harpenden, the testing par 70 course measures 6,377 yards from the back tees, but the original Hawtree and Taylor brief was to lay out a course that stretched out to an incredible 7,000 yards. This would have made Harpenden one of the longest courses in the country at that time. However, the early Harpenden membership wisely decided that 7,000 yards was a test too far for their hickories, so they settled for a course of more modest length.

Harpenden has hosted the regional finals of the Lombard Trophy for two years running and other important regional tournaments have been played over the club’s rolling fairways, including the Hertfordshire Men’s County Championship in 2019. The English Senior Women’s Open Amateur Stroke Play Championship was also hosted here in 2017.

Golfers who have succeeded at Harpenden have relied on accurate positional play rather than sheer length. But the first three holes are tough par fours that measure more than 400 yards.

The 3rd is a good example, where a straight drive is crucial in order to avoid out of bounds on the right and trees on the left. However, if your drive is too short, you’ll be faced with a tough approach that must clear a ditch that crosses the fairway some 80 yards from the green. To make matters worse, this putting surface is subtly borrowed and one of the trickiest to read on the course.

Our favourite holes come back-to-back at 13 and 14 heralding the start of a homeward stretch of six holes that begin and end at the clubhouse.