The Missing Links: November 2023

Wednesday 15 November 2023

Weston-super-Mare, Somerset, England

https://www.westonsupermaregolfclub.com/

Black tees par 70, slope 123, 6169 yards
Green tees (ladies) par 72, slope 115, 5543 yards

Lying on the Bristol Channel, golf was first played on Weston-super-Mare in 1892 after a nine hole course was designed by Tom Dunn, a Scottish professional golfer and golf architect. At the club's inception a proposal to allow ladies to play over the men's course was heavily defeated and a separate ladies' course was also laid out. Only four years later another nine holes were added. In 1922 the course was modernised under the direction of Dr Alister McKenzie who is probably best known as the architect of Augusta National.

Weston-super-Mare is in a good position for a true links course but lacks enough attributes to be described as such. It lies on flat ground on which we could see no evidence of sandy soil, lacks hard and fast running fairways, has no dunes and quite a few trees. After a friendly welcome, we played on a sunny, windy day in November when you would not expect almost all the bunkers to be flooded and sodden ground on the fairways, even allowing for recent heavy rain, but that is what we found. The greens were in reasonable condition but the fairways were poor.

The 4th hole has a wall across the fairway.
Scrub blocks views of the sea

Heading in a south west direction, the first four holes, three par 4s and a par 3, run along the beach but it and the sea are obscured from view by a high barrier of scrub. The most memorable of these is the fourth which has a dry stone wall across the fairway. The fifth and sixth holes are two par 4s separated from the rest of the course by a road and are the only holes with a view of the Bristol Channel. The seventh is a par 3 named 'Four Eyes' after the bunkers which guard the green. The next memorable hole is the fifteenth because of its name - 'Road Hole'. We assumed this was because of the positioning of the greenside bunker likening the hole to the famous seventeenth at St Andrews Old Course. A nondescript flat short hole follows and then a par 5 dogleg left to right which tempts the player to take a shortcut over an area of out of bounds.

The 14th green is overlooked by
the Old Church of St Nicholas

Worth playing? Not if you want a true links experience.

The Links Project

There are 246 true links golf courses in the world and this blog is a record of our attempt to play all of them. My husband Ron and I are keen golfers and I came up with the idea of this project after he gave me the book by George Peper and Malcolm Campbell 'True Links' which lists them all.

The commonest question we are asked about our project is 'How do you define a true links course?' This will be debated by aficionados for long after we have (hopefully) completed our quest and there will never be a correct answer. The strict definition is from the British Golf Museum:

1. The course must be beside a river estuary

2. It must offer partial or occasional views of the sea

3. It must have few trees

4. It must have numerous bunkers

5. It must have nines that run out and back, the front heading to a far point and the back returning to the clubhouse

Peper and Campbell defined their list as follows:

Terrain - how close is the course to the sea? Do the fairways run fast and hard? Do the greens favour a run-on approach? How open is the site? How natural? Is there a freedom from trees? Is the invasion of gorse and brush controlled? How light is the environmental footprint on the land?

Turf - is there a sand base? What grasses are dominant on the fairways and greens? Is the rough managed ( creating biodiversity for flora and fauna)? How well does the course drain?

Weather - how exposed is the site to the elements? What are the typical wind conditions? Does the course play hard and fast all year round? Must temporary greens and tees be used in winter? Is the course susceptible to winter closure?

Peper and Campbell included courses which supplied the correct answers to most of these questions. But however defined, to me the poem by Sir John Betjeman encapsulates the feeling of links golf.