Warren - Dawlish

“If, besides golf, you can list your recreational activities as bird watching, train spotting and naturalism (that’s the one in which you keep your clothes ON),” wrote Kevin Lee in The Golfers Guide to the West Country, “then a visit to the Warren will make you think you have died and gone to heaven.

Not only is this the only true links course in south Devon – it has been referred to, and with some reason, as the ‘St Andrews of the South’ – but is situated on a narrow peninsula, in truth not much more than a wide spit of land, between the sea and the estuary of the River Exe.

The area is an internationally-renowned wildlife conservation area, flat as you might expect, with the usual enemies on a links course, such as narrow fairways, gorse, heather, naturally-occurring bunkers, the odd sandhill, a none-too-friendly wind and the occasional train. This being Dawlish, the coastal railway line is never that far away, although far enough never to disturb the peace, except on the 18th.

The last hole is exceptional in that, from the white markers, the tee is on an island when the tide is in, and players have to cross a little bridge to get to it. It shares a fairway with the first and the green nestles below the Paddington-Penzance West of England main line.

The other hole which will burn itself onto the memory is the seventh, which tempts you to play across a bay on the estuary, but slightly too far right lands you among the bucket-and-spade brigade on the beach.”