Review of the Month November 2019 – Queenwood
When I was younger I used to drive past Queenwood a lot as it is right opposite Foxhills Golf Club, where I was a member for a few years. I always used to look out of the window and tell myself that one day I would be inside the metal gates, and play the Augusta of England that is Queenwood Golf Club. On Monday my dream became a reality.
Everything about the place oozes class and is quite truly sensational. I can’t stress to you enough how great the Queenwood experience is. They treat you like royalty, the range balls are free and all Titleist Pro V1s and the course is as pure as they come. The tee boxes are maintained to perfection, the greens are unreal with sub air systems, which very very few courses in England have. The bunkers are beautifully designed and the fairways are lined to perfection. The whole course is just immaculate.
My favourite holes are the par five 1st, an average length hole which has a great looking approach shot into the green. The par four 5th is also a great risk and reward hole. A dogleg left with water on the right. The further left you take it the less you have in but then there's more tree and bush that you have to try and get over.
The back nine has two of my favourite holes on the course. 10 and 16 are both great par fours for similar reasons. The 10th is a downhill drive with the great clubhouse in the background and a dogleg to the right. The second shot goes over water onto an undulating green. The 16th is a short par four with water just short of the green and one of the most ridiculous greens you’ll ever play. The 18th is also a great finishing hole, a par five and hitting towards the great clubhouse.
Overall, I have to give Queenwood a 6-ball rating. The course is unbelievable and everything is amazingly kept. The whole place is magical and in the summer it is truly an unreal place. Was a treat to play and will definitely be playing it many more times!
Review of the Month November 2019 selected by Editor-in-Chief, Keith Baxter, and sponsored by TaylorMade – click to read more about Queenwood.
Is England the premier golfing destination in Europe? With a dozen courses in the World Top 100 and more courses than any other country ranked in Britain & Ireland’s Top 100, England expects. 9th October 2011 Visit England, the national tourist board for England, is responsible for promoting the country to domestic and overseas markets and for improving England’s tourism product. Unlike their tourist board counterparts in Scotland and Ireland, Visit England does little to promote golf and we genuinely wonder why, especially given that English professional golfers are flying the St George’s Cross on the world stage. According to IAGTO, the International Association of Golfing Tour Operators, the global golf tourism market is estimated to be worth more than $17 billion annually. Thailand announced last month that the value of foreign golf tourism in 2012 might reach a cool $2 billion. It’s estimated that Scotland earns £200 million each year from golf tourism and even diminutive Northern Ireland collects around £12 million per annum. In a 2010 report, KPMG identified England at position 6 in a list of Hot Spots for golf tourism in the upcoming years. Heading the list was Spain, followed by Portugal, Scotland, Ireland and the USA. Position 6 seems rather high because most people take England, as a golf destination, for granted. Overseas golfers place English courses on their possible rather than probable play lists. If there’s time after visiting Scotland and Ireland, tourists might try and get to Southport to play Royal Birkdale, or perhaps aim to visit Sandwich to tick off Royal St George’s. Naturally, they’d only head to the links after seeing the Changing the Guard at Buckingham Palace, doing a spot of shopping at Harrods and searching for the ghost of Shakespeare at Stratford upon Avon. Many English golfers have a take it or leave it approach to English golf courses too. They expect courses to be presented in excellent condition all year round and moan if they are not. Many complain that English green fees are too expensive and then grumble that that they can’t get a game at Queenwood at any price. But most English golfers choose to visit other countries for their annual golf trip. They even choose to visit Ireland, Scotland and Wales rather than planning a trip closer to home. We thought it high time to bang England’s drum, so we decided to take a long hard look at the golf courses under the jurisdiction of the English Golf Union. In February 2011, we started a project to identify the best golf courses in every English county. We’ve now completed the Best In County project having looked at more than 1,000 English courses, polled hundreds of people and listened intently to what local county golfers had to say about their home courses. The result we think is fascinating. Never before has any publication, either in print or online, produced a full series of the best golf courses on a county-by-county basis and we now know why it’s never been done before. The reason is simple. It’s an extremely difficult and contentious process that is fraught with a multitude of issues. Nevertheless, we’ve done it and we’re pleased to have completed the process. However, this is just the beginning, as the county rankings will change alongside the country rankings, continent rankings and the World Top 100 rankings. Please take a look at our dedicated county pages and let us know what you think. We’ll be grateful if you do not assume that the course you know and love is better than the one you’ve not played. We’ve made that mistake time and time again and have found that our preconceptions are simply wrong. Our plan is to change the county rankings on a frequent basis in order to reflect the changing situation as we learn more about the greatest courses in each county. Here’s the list of every English county and the corresponding, current No.1 course. Many No.1 courses are household names, but we bet there are a few you’ve never heard of, let alone played. This link below will take you to the England page on the Top 100 website, where you can select and review the current rankings for each separate county: /golf-courses/britain-ireland/england The Top 100 Team If you play or have played county level golf or are simply passionate about your home county’s golf courses and would like to help us further develop this exciting and first-of-its-kind initiative, then please send an email to info@top100golfcourses.com. We’d love to hear from you.
The purpose of the Review of The Month feature is twofold. Top100GolfCourses has always aimed to salute and encourage those who are putting admirable effort into reviewing the world’s great golf courses. Moving forward, we are also looking to learn from these experts! We’ll be chatting with the month’s star authors and discussing topics such as golf in their area, what they like to see in a strong course review, and of course dig a little deeper into their own winning review. December 2023’s Review of The Month comes from David Scoular, who traveled to the northernmost corners of Hertfordshire to play the chalk-soiled gem that is Royston Golf Club, which claims to be the oldest 18-hole golf course in England. You can read David’s winning review, and find other Royston writeups here. -- There is truly something special about traversing out and back across Therfield Heath. Although Royston Golf Club was founded in 1892, the course will be celebrating 400 years of Golf in 2024, providing justification to the note emblazed across the scorecard, "The Oldest 18 Hole Golf Course in England". The course features firm, fast fairways, playable all year round. This is thanks to its location, upon fast-draining chalk-based downland. Making the course a worthwhile pilgrimage for any golf starved individuals throughout the winter months. Royston is regarded as short by modern standards, measuring 5,910 yards. but due to its exposed position, perched high on common land. The varying wind direction and small green targets require well planned shots. None more so than the 8th, "Rand's Folly" . The hole stretches along an undulating fairway with a slight right-to-left slope from a blind tee location. requiring a drive to the left side of the fairway setting up a precise shot into the raised, fort like green. The par threes are all interesting. The two stand out holes, been the 5th & 10th. The fifth, requires a long iron across a broad valley, played predominately into the prevailing wind. The Tenth, a 221 yard valley hole, played from an elevated tee to a well guarded green, can be regarded as the courses hidden gem. Pars on either holes are well received. The stretch from the fifteenth to the eighteenth tee, offers wonderful variety, and excellent opportunities to improve a score. The climb up to Wee Knock, the short 16th will require a few moments to catch your breathe, in this moment make sure the correct club is selected. Anything short or left will be thrown off this blind raised green. The18th, played from a high tee with wind normally behind offers most golfers the opportunity to reach this Par 4 in one. I am pleased to see Royston feature in the county rankings. A county well regarded for its parkland golf. The Par 70 course has no two holes alike and should delight the enthusiastic golfer. I look forward to my next visit.
The purpose of the Review of The Month feature is twofold. Top100GolfCourses has always aimed to salute and encourage those who are putting admirable effort into reviewing the world’s great golf courses. Moving forward, we are also looking to learn from these experts! We’ll be chatting with the month’s star authors and discussing topics such as golf in their area, what they like to see in a strong course review, and of course dig a little deeper into their own winning review. September 2023’s Review of The Month comes from Mariano Martinez de Azagra, who avoided the tourist trends and found thrills at Kington Golf Club in Herefordshire. There are some courses that are obvious locales for international golfers when visiting England. Kington isn't one of them! How/why did you and your pals end up in Herefordshire during your trip? One of the things I like most about golf trips is their preparation. That is, the design of the itinerary, something like the routing of the trip. Therefore, I have a lot of fun researching in advance and then deciding which courses to include. In this case, we traveled to South Wales, where we enjoyed courses such as Porthcawl, Pennard and Southerndown, among others. But, as our flight arrived in Bristol, I saw the opportunity to make a short detour and head to Kington on our way to our base in Wales. As for Kington, the first reference I had was through Tom Doak's Confidential Guide, whose short review really intrigued me. And, from there, I visited the Top100GolfCourses website, in order to corroborate that impression with user reviews, which led me to Sean Arble's extensive chronicle for GolfClubAtlas. From there, it was clear to me that Kington had to be one of the highlights of our trip to Wales. Kington has undeniable charm (as you mentioned, sheep as greenskeepers). How much of a boost does such charm give a course like Kington, versus the well-established fame of championship-caliber clubs? For me it is fundamental. I find that courses like Kington combine two of the parameters that I value most in golf: charm and sustainability. In this sense, it shares the same characteristics as other of my favorite places in golf, such as Brora, Boat of Garten and Fraserburgh in Scotland, or Ballycastle and Dooks in Ireland. All of them are clubs located in small towns, with very controlled maintenance costs, and where the green fee price has not skyrocketed, unlike the most distinguished clubs. And it's also much easier and more satisfying to be able to stop and chat with members, as I was lucky enough to do at Kington. Like any golfer, I also enjoy the experience of visiting the most renowned clubs, with first-rate facilities and top conditioning, but it is not my priority when it comes to visiting new courses. C.K. Hutchison has not had a hand in many course designs, but those that he did are well known, especially Turnberry's Ailsa, West Sussex, and Gleneagles. Have you had an opportunity to play any of these? If so, notice any trends in his designs? Unfortunately, I have not been able to play any of these courses; I tried to visit West Sussex in 2019 but it wasn't possible. Of course, I have been pleased to see that where he did have some intervention was at the West Links in North Berwick, my all-time favorite, although I imagine that his contribution must not have been particularly significant. Many golf groups traveling to Spain will also be inclined to visit the "big names" on the list. As a well-informed Spanish golfer, are there any off-the-beaten-path gems akin to Kington that you would recommend? In my experience, no. Let me explain myself: in Spain, golf is much more recent, and does not enjoy the tradition of Great Britain and Ireland. Consequently, it is almost unthinkable to find a course of Kington's quality in a secluded location, and bearing the signature of a famous and competent architect. In fact, and in general, we are decades behind Great Britain when it comes to many of the issues that I value most in golf, such as the preparation of the courses (it is not unusual to find overwatered fairways and greens) or the slow pace of play (no one has even imagined tee times for foursomes or two balls). It is a matter of golf culture in which we have a long way to go. Of course, if I had to recommend a course in my country, it would be El Saler, in Valencia. I know it's moderately famous, but it's often off the beaten path of golf, and it's really good. A side note: While they are not of the quality of the British, there are more than acceptable courses everywhere in Spain. And, of course, what I can assure you is that the offer in any area of Spain is superior to Britain in aspects such as gastronomy, and leisure in general. And the weather factor also helps... Now that you're a celebrated "Review of The Month" winner, let us know what factors you appreciate in a strong golf course review! Basically, two things: On the one hand, it must provide useful information about the experience, which may include aspects about the club's services, but mainly about the course, although I do not need it to go into an extensive description of each of the holes. Rather, I am inclined to value an overview of the entire experience of the round of golf; something that convinces me that I want to go there... or not. On the other hand, I also appreciate certain originality, or some type of uniqueness, that can come from anecdotes or the description of the feelings that the round of golf, or the atmosphere of the club aroused in the reviewer. What's one course that you're excited to write a review for in the upcoming year? I am already planning my trip for next year, most likely to the West coast of Scotland and, within it, the courses I would most like to play (and review) are Machrihanish, Prestwick and Shiskine.
