Top 30 Golf Courses of Wales – 2012

26th January 2012

Top 100 Golf Courses updates its golf course rankings for Wales

Top 100 Golf Courses, the most informed and dedicated ranking website, first established a Top 15 chart of golf courses for Wales back in 2006. That inaugural list has now doubled in size; first to 20 in 2008, then to 30 in 2010.

The Principality could never be considered a hotbed for golf in the UK but, when you consider the number of top courses that it has against its population and the size of the country, it really does very well for itself.

The two Royals – Porthcawl and St David’s – sit proudly at the top of our Welsh table and, quite frankly, it’s hard to see any other course shift them from that position any time soon as they are universally regarded as the best two 18-holers in the country.

For top quality golf spread over several layouts, North Wales is hard to beat, as it boasts four of the nation’s Top 10 courses. Apart from the aforementioned Royal St David’s, there’s the charming Aberdovey, understated Conwy and quirky Nefyn & District (Old). A few of the Top 100 Team paid all four a visit last summer and were mightily impressed by the golf on offer.

West Wales is the most isolated of all four regions in the country yet its three top tracks all feature in the Top 10 for Wales: Tenby (one of the oldest courses in the country), Ashburnham (another fine old course dating back to 1894) and the exciting new Machynys Peninsula development next to Llanelli.

Mid Wales in not over endowed with great golfing terrain so it’s hardly a surprise to find less than a handful of courses from that region in our chart. That’s not to say, however, that golf at Llandrindod Wells, Welshpool and Cardiganis anything less than interesting and excellent value for money.

Although the region of South Wales is the smallest of our four Welsh regions in terms of its geography, it provides almost half the number of courses in our Top 30 chart. Pennardis a particular favourite of golf writer James W Finegan (who has played all the top tracks in Great Britain and Ireland) though it has dropped one place in our latest listing to position 4.

We visited Celtic Manor a while back and were blown away by the quality of the three courses at the resort. The Twenty TenRyder Cup course just seems to improve with age, Robert Trent Jones Snr’s Roman Roadlayout is also maturing nicely, whilst the newest 18 holes on the property, the Montgomerie, is the highest climber on our chart, rising six places to position 14.

There are only two new entries in the Wales chart, Pwllheli at 29 and Vale of Llangollen at 30, with Llandudno – Maesdu and Cradoc making way for them.

We welcome constructive criticism of what we do at Top 100 Golf Courses… in fact, it’s positively encouraged so please tell us what we’ve got wrong with Wales and what we might have got right. For instance, is there possibly a proverbial “hidden gem” that should be elevated from Gem status to a Top 30 ranking position?

Top 100 doesn’t claim to be “definitive” but we pride ourselves on being the most “informed” golf course ranking operation in the business. If you’ve played any of our featured courses in Wales, we’d be delighted to hear what you think, so why not contribute to the process and send us a course review or two?

Jim McCann
Editor
www.top100golfcourses.com

To view the complete list of the Top 30 courses in Wales click here.