AmateurGolfNet

Archive for August, 2011

I visited Celtic Manor with the family and must say that there is plenty of entertainment for the kids, games rooms in the hotel, swimming in the pool, taking on dad at adventure golf and swinging through the treetops on the highwire forest jump course.

The 2010 Clubhouse

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The Badger - 8th hole at Chiltern Forest

The 8th hole at Chiltern Forest is called The Badger and is just 160 yards in length, the postage stamp green cannot be seen from the tee but you can just see the flag next to the tree on the left, some 80 feet above the tee!

When H.S. Colt designed Stoke Park, Alistair MacKenzie was his assistant, a quarter of a century later, MacKenzie was commissioned by the great Bobby Jones to design a course on the site of an old nursery in Augusta.

The 7th at Stoke Park, surrounded by beautiful foliage

Some say MacKenzie used the 7th at Stoke Park as inspiration for the 12th at Augusta.

(I was going to post close ups of the flowers but I think this shot of the whole scene looks great)

Having lived in central Scotland for a number of years and played all The Open courses north of the border, I now wish to draw your attention to a course only a few miles from my home that will host the 2014 Ryder Cup. Hopefully this will enable readers, and fellow golf enthusiasts, to gain a little insight of the venue.

The Gleneagles Hotel

I first attended the Ryder Cup in 1971 at the Old Warson Country Club in St Louis, Missouri, USA and since then I have been a regular attendee, it is now the flagship of the PGA.

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If you manage it in one shot it is the entrance to pure elation, delight & jubilation giving the player such a buzz.

The entrance to sheer bliss if you manage to enter with just one shot

Last time I played Heythrop Park the batteries on my camera died before I got to the first tee so I took the opportunity to play it again on Saturday to finally get some golf related images.

I might have managed to get photos of the course this time round but my golf was awful, for the first time in years I was in danger of shooting a gross score of 100 plus, I ended up just shy of a century with not much else to celebrate.

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The CEO of the company I work for hitting a 7-iron from the top of Kilimanjaro!

Was this the longest 7-iron in history?

My first visit to Kington was a bit of a washout, during the major floods of July 2007, I finally managed to play it the year after and found the golf course to be one of England’s gems.

Kington Golf Club - golf above the clouds.

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My partner is not a golfer so she tends to not accompany me on my trips golfing days out. Every now and then though I visit a ‘Golf Resort’ and when I do she joins me, along with the kids, for what I suppose is a mini break or holiday.

There are many beautiful venues out there that can be very romantic providing you don’t spend all day on the golf course that is.

In no particular order here is a list of my romantic golf resorts.

Bovey Castle - Devon, England

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