Minchinhampton (Avening)

One of only a few English clubs to boast three full length 18-hole courses, the Old course occupies a separate site on Minchinhampton Common to the west of the town, while the other two layouts are located between the villages of Avening and Cherington to southeast of Minchinhampton town.

Both the Avening and Cherington courses are an amalgam of a mid-1970s 18-hole F.W. Hawtree layout to which Martin Hawtree (F.W’s son), added a further 18 holes in 1995. Each course utilises a combination of holes fashioned by father and son.

The joins are not seamless, especially if you study the green complexes. The older Fred W greens are smaller with less movement, whereas Martin’s larger greens offer more pin positions and have greater undulations.

There’s genuinely very little difference in quality between Minchinhampton’s two “new” courses. When Open Regional Qualifying was held here in the early 2000s the Cherington course was used, but the R&A later deployed a composite course because the Cherington – which is the longer of the two – only measures 6,459 yards from the tips.

Open Regional Qualifying returned to Minchinhampton in 2018 when The Open was held at Carnoustie, and a composite course was again utilised, consisting of holes 1, 2 and 18 of the Cherington and 1-3 and 7-18 of the Avening layout. According to the R&A: “This composite layout reforms the original layout, which is referred to as The Avening Championship Course.”