So the course is still there and people are playing it, lots of them. Its next to the sea and its clubhouse sits on the very edge of an old 'toon' with a beach stretching along all of one side of its holes. Its also miles away - and its not St Andrews. Those who were worrying about the Open of 2005 can breathe easier. It will be there in July, Tiger and all.
Miles away means a bit of a drive, a perfect opportunity to witness the state of GB through its highways and byways. A straight line from A to B seemed like the perfect way of firstly building a road (for the Romans) and then for getting people safely to their destination. That would be all too easy so adding a few bends and then persuading everyone that a new car every six months is a practical way of supporting an industry whose balance sheet is bottomlessly red has produced the seeds of metallic weeds which are the help now available roadside for all drivers, soon to be flowering at every 50yards of tarmac from Lands End to John O'Groats, whilst cars crawl by because there is no more room.
Find a still straight bit of road, anywhere near a town, and obviously every half-wit who possesses a 'banger' that passes as a mobile disco and runs on jet fuel has learnt to seize the opportunity to overtake on the opposite side of the bollards around junctions. Its highly illegal but do they care? To 'prevent' this happening, you can now see the equivalent of a modern art gallery plastered roadside telling you exactly where you should be going rather than when common sense was two words that actually meant something.
There is an alternative to needing an aluminium factory for signs for every 100 miles of road, or sticking cash registers on poles. That is to make speeding and dangerous driving much more expensive and indefensible. Of course the biggest problem with this premise is that taking away someone?s car is against their rights. Its apparently fair that the easiest and most volume producing methods are the best way of educating people and if you were wondering where this feature was going, its now returning rapidly to the subject of a missing golf course with a different look at mass education.
Temby Golf Club is missing from a list of the Top 100 golf clubs in GB and Ireland. Its been on this particular list, and a number of others, for some time and as a reference, saying you?ve played a Top 100 course carries a name dropping effect which is useful PR, useful enough that some will pay handsomely to achieve such recognition.
It won't be long before such lists of golf courses do feature on the satellite TV stations in very much the same format as the 100 greatest this and that dominate Channel 4's Sunday night schedules. This will complete the path to the complete marketing control of what is actually an arbitrary assessment which few could undertake, such is the cost and the time that would consume even the most devoted golf nut or nuttess should they even try to rank design and beauty with fun and feel of the best links in these lands. If volume does ever count for accuracy and truthfulness, then the biggest magazines and the most popular media will be peddling corporate money and educating the masses on where to play and how to enjoy our game. The Top 100, from who-ever, will become a package with coach trips and welcoming stuck on smiles as golfers prepare to spend!
However, the first thing to be said about Tenby is that despite it being a very popular member's club, it is a wonderfully welcoming place for visitors and does not possess a green fee of anything like the three figures that will be yanked from your wallet or off your credit card for stepping onto the first tee of many other venues.
The clubhouse is not a palladian palace where a cup of coffee is ý7.50 but it has everything a golf club should, for member and visitor alike. Everyone is warm and friendly (the food excellent), all this from a club which has more history than 99.99% of other clubs across the globe. You will be stepping onto the tee of a course where the greats have played, a course were the greens have folds and slopes which would be instantly wiped away by any boffin of modern day course architecture with the biggest bulldozer they could find.
You will find some haggard old bunkers which are tough enough to frighten away the sheep that are supposed to have made them. There are a few blind drives or approaches and exposed is not quite the word for what is pure links for 15 holes, exactly what you should expect when nature added the pastime of golf to the recreation of people in times gone by.
The first was probably a par five in times gone by. Its still a par five but someone has marked the card as a four. In the prevailing breeze, the second will ask questions of your long irons and then the magic really starts. You need a fade to hold the third fairway, all slopes and slants, then the 'bottle' of an Open Champion to play and hold the shelf of a green itself - an absolute classic.
Four and five will be easier during your afternoon round (they each have a blind shot) and six will probably not be played for much longer when the slight changes have been made to the middle holes of the course.
You now step onto the 7th, another strong, near classic par four. The bunkers on the right look a little too easy to play out of, offering you a chance to make the green in three if you find one of them. With a pin anywhere right on the green, it's a par you will be most grateful of.
The 8th has a path to the beach in its landing area so expect soon to not have to play to a par three green (during the Summer, for safety reasons) but instead to try to launch two shots into the far distance for a new hole, and then to return to the old course from a cliff set tee and round a niche in the bay, a hole which will become noted and photed (photographed) in every golfing magazine.
The present 9th is the first of two holes on the course with long greens. All the putting surfaces are generous (as they should be when the wind is very much part of the game) but this and the 14th are greens which can be three clubs long downwind and a lot more when played into wind or across.
You'll then play two tough but fair and very true long fours, one which will play the complete antithesis of the other as they route back and forth. The 10th has a green site which has been used very much in say the 6th at Tralee, part hidden against a hill. The 11th asks you not to miss right if you want a chance at a par four.
Standing on the 12th tee, you can take one last close look at the wonderful scenery of Tenby Bay. It's a big par three where a fade is the shot which will hold and feed along the green giving you a chance at a three. Miss and it's a four, or more.
It is possible to drive the 13th, or if you do play for position down the left, you can watch the ball gather into the flag for any good wedge to a right pin. Then comes the 14th.
Once again (as on the 7th), there are a couple of bunkers right for your tee shot which would be horrific if they were as deep as the pit just short of the green. As the only par five on the course, all players see this hole as an opportunity to make up a shot. However, as the pin goes farther back on this green, like the 9th, the club required (even for an approach which is run at the flag) can go down significantly and on closer inspection (when your ball has missed right or left), you'll notice that this green has a spine at the back which is barely half the width of the green itself, hence why you are not there with putter in hand.
It has been around 50 years since Tenby moved three holes across the railway line. They retain a fair bit of the feel of the rest of the course and from the 16th green and the 17th tee, it?s a perfect way to look round and see the special place this is before heading back to the clubhouse. There is an absolute gem of a bit of architecture on the 15th, just short of the green, a pot bunker sticking straight out of the fairway which like on many other classic links holes just takes your eye away from the need to play a good straight approach. None of these three is easy, and nor is the 18th where a huge hummock of a hill guards the green. From the top tee, set up on a rocky outcrop next to the 1st green and used only in the Summer, it's a spectacular view to a fairway which gets narrower and narrower with a path and the railway line on the left to tempt you to try a safer route right. You?ll take a par four and be happy.
That's the course, a test for anyone and when the new holes (designed by members and probably a much better job than any consultant would do) come into play, then the list makers can promote the new and the old at the same time by making Tenby a 'riser' in their respective ?charts? for its progressive outloook.
Tenby is a grand old seaside town with beaches and facilities the equal of any. You can see why membership would flourish year round and even living in Cardiff, Tenby would be a perfect home club and worth the drive. It is a long way but find the M4 into Wales and you just follow the triple and dual carriageway straight ahead until a turn left for just a few miles of more twisty travel to the town itself where accommodation is there for any pocket. If you only want manicured trees, please don't call yourself a golfer because Tenby is just one of the grand old links which will provide you with a day you will remember and make your game all the better for the experience. Just play it and if in years to come, the club members do decide to shut up shop, raise the greenfees and keep it all to themselves, I for one would not blame them and you should be happy you made the visit.
Whether or not to travel? From the South Tenby is far closer than the 'greats' of Scotland. If you live in the Midlands it is possible to make a visit a day out if you are up with the sparrows - but take a bit more time and really enjoy the town. From the North of England. you have Conway close, one of the best in Wales. For the rest of the trumps that are 'Golf as it should be', a few days away on this the South Coast of the County that will host the 2010 Ryder Cup is a must, with Tenby one of the places to definitely play.
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