Top 50 Golf Courses of Wales 2014
Top 50 Golf Courses of Wales 2014
Top 100 Golf Courses expands its golf course rankings for Wales
20th December 2013
Top 100 Golf Courses began ranking golf courses in Wales back in 2006. That initial list of fifteen layouts doubled in size to thirty in 2010 but now we’re able to further extend our coverage of golf in Wales to fifty courses. We think we’ve now reached the limit and do not expect to increase the number of ranked Welsh courses in the future.
It should come as no surprise to discover that The Two Royals – Porthcawland St David’s – remain firmly at the summit of our new Welsh chart. Ably supported by Aberdovey and Pennard, it’s hard to imagine another course breaking into any of the top four Welsh positions as this quartet of top tracks stands head and shoulders above all the others.
Ashburnham(at position 6) and Southerndown (at number 9) enter the new Top 10 listing and this pair of fine old courses boast impressive golfing pedigrees: the former, dating back to 1894, has been fashioned down the years by J.H. Taylor, Fred Hawtree and Ken Cotton whilst the latter, formed in 1905, bears the architectural hallmarks of Herbert Fowler, Willie Park and Donald Steel.
The other three significant chart climbers in our new Welsh rankings are all located in the north of the country, where each one of the 18-hole layouts hugs the coastline in that spectacular part of The Principality: North Wales(up six to position 13), Holyhead(up six to number 16) and Bull Bay (up seven spots to 17).
On the downside, Nefyn (Old) falls four positions to 11. The course was once the national number 3 (in our first Welsh chart) but, unfortunately, it has slipped down in every biennial listing since then (4 in 2008, 5 in 2010 then 7 in 2012). However, Howard Swann is currently engaged in long-term renovations at Nefyn, with the principle objective to improve safety, so we expect Nefyn to climb again in future rankings, especially when the new cliff top par three comes into play.
As the Welsh chart has just been expanded from thirty to fifty, there are plenty of new entries, the highest of which – Vale (Wales National) – appears at number 29. Three of the courses below this position have appeared in previous chart editions: Newport(currently 32) was positioned at 28 in 2012, Cradoc(now 37) was placed at 29 in 2010 and Llandudno - Maesdu (at 46) occupied the number 26 spot in 2010.
Top 100 Golf Courses never claims to be “definitive” but we do like to think that we’re the most “informed” in the business of ranking golf courses. If you’ve played any of our featured courses in Wales – especially the ones that have just appeared in our 2014 chart – then we’d love to know your opinion, so why not contribute to the process by submitting a course review?
Jim McCann
Editor
www.top100golfcourses.com
Click to explore in detail our new 2014 Wales Top 50