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[Paul_Turner]

Cruden Bay?  Nah.  Ballybunion?  Nope.  Pennard?  No!

It's Perranporth in Cornwall (Braid).  I'll lable the pics later and add the back nine.


Wicked sloping green on 1st: 380 yds downhill, right-left canted fairway.


Blind par 5 second: 500yds uphill.




Most holes have a number sign...so many blind shots, nobody knows where the hell they are!


Double hollow green at 2nd


Panorama from 3rd: 360 yds-knob to knob.


Approach to pulpit green at 3rd (lots of these)

Semi blind par 3: 200yds  A really good one here...a running draw is the shot.

Looking back.

Crazy par 5 5th: 530yds.  Smack it on the number sign.


View over the brow.


You can see the post high up in the distance.  If you can carry the dune, a 350-400 yd drive beckons/

Short par 3: 130yds.

Looking back at lovely par 4 7th: 365 yds.

8th tee: 290 yds downhill and easily reachable in terms of distance.

Keep right at the 8th green.

[George Pazin]

Wow. Thanks for posting.

How 'bout the yardage from the tips and the slope?

[Bill_McBride]

Paul, some Painswickian touches there!

[Mat Ward]

Georgie,
You forgot to ask for contact information.  A mea culpa on your part amigo, but PULEHHHHEEEEEEEEEZZZZ never forget contact information!

Paul, I need all of the information (slope, course rating, yardage) you have from the very tips. I'm not talking about the back tips, I'm talking about the very back of the back tips to the point you'll fall over into gorse and bramble. This all adds to the driving challenge.

 

[Mark_Rowlinson]

Paul,

Fantastic photos (as usual) and immensely helpful for next update of Times Guide (not currently in the offing).  It goes on my must visit list.

Mark.

[Paul_Turner]

9th approach, 365 yds uphill.


10th approach. Cool green here.  350 yds uphill.

Long 11th 540 yds.

3 pulpit greens on view.  11th, 12th and 14th.  I tried the run up shot to the 11th, but the bank is really too steep for the shot.


Lovely 12th.  Hit a shot straight over the number; never saw it again.




Stunning 13th.  What a back drop.  It's driveable, 300 downhill, but you have to hit the perfect shot and be a bit lucky.

Lovely jubbly!

3 tier green here: low-high-low.

14th, turning left.  395 yard uphill.


14th green.

Super par 3 16th.  210 yards downhill.

Lots of crap on the right.  Green is severe.

18th. 280 yds, downhill.


Poser

No pics of 15, 17 but these are cool holes too.

[Matt_Ward]

Paul said, "You can see the post high up in the distance.  If you can carry the dune, a 350-400 yd drive beckons."

How far is it to carry the hill you pictured?

Thanks ...

P.S. As George mentioned can you share what the yardage is for the course along with par.

[Paul_Turner]

Matt

It's about 280 yds to clear the dune.  You have to be reasonably accurate to hit the narrow sward of fairway.

Course is about 6300 yds.  No hole starts with the number 4!  Plenty of tough par 5s though.  It's a ball gobbler too.

[Paul_Turner]

par 72, SSS 72

[Rick Shefchik]

Paul -- Looking at these photos was the best part of my day today. Thank you.

Perranporth makes every other course I've seen or played seem ridiculously over-built.

[Dan Kelly]

Best part of my day, too. Thanks, Paul.

Any chance you could annotate the photos a
bit? Tell us par, length, and a little about how they
play?

Thanks, in any case. Rick S. says this looks like just the
place for me. It does look like high fun.

[Matt_Ward]

Paul:

Having played Pennard and given it's unique location and it's own particular style of quirk what in your opinion makes it a  second place choice behind the glorious pictures you posted?

[TEPaul]

Paul:

You're right---that probably is the craziest links in the world. The course looks hilariously fun to play but some of the stuff out there is just plain hilarious. Those hole number signs---what in the world are those things that look like cart paths doing on a course like that not top mention incredibly ugly trailers parked side by side next to the 18th and a water hazard the size of a toilet bowl? GeoffShac once wrote an article about humor in architecture and that course looks like it has a boatload of that. I think a local stymie rule should be mandatory there.

Thanks for the photos---you always come up with such interesting ones from over there!

[Gene Greco]

Fabulous!! I think I have a new love!

Made my day, Paul, and thanks for sharing.

[Doug Siebert]

Nice....getting me in the mood for my trip to Ireland next month...

[SPDB]

Paul - Thanks for the pics. Looks awesome.
Quick question, if you miss long on 18, how
much is the cab back from town?

[TEPaul]

Do you see that last photo Paul posted entitled "poser" (with the golfer in it)?

That single photo very well may be the most perfect combination of "line" tie-ins of every imaginable shape and angle all backdropped by the flat "lines" of the sea behind, that little green tucked in between and the lines of the ground in the foreground highlighted by those grasses. The flat-topped formation on the right and the convex mound on the left just says it all about the availability of all kinds of things useful throughout the evolution of golf and its architecture.

[TEPaul]

Not to mention the little white ball conspicously in the foreground of that awesome shot. Paul, if you took that photograph it just might make you famous someday. That just may be one of the overall most interesting photos for a true golf architecture lover there's ever been!

[ForkaB]

Paul T

GREAT STUFF!!!

I hereby give up in my quest to find the craziest links in the world!  Painswick looks like child's play v. Perranporth.

T Paul

Paul T should have said "poseur", or even "Naffeur", but we got his point.........

[NAF]

Paul, you slack jawed English Beatle, where is my credit for demanding we go to Perranporth!!!!!  And I am not a poser in those pictures, you are such a spiteful fellow!

Without a doubt, Paul and my visit to Perranporth was the highlight of our recent trip.  The course actually was originally mentioned to me by my friend Russell Talley but we did not have the chance to visit it during a trip to St. Enodoc last year.

There is almost nothing in the world of golf and in the British Isles that prepared me for Perranporth.  Having seen so many quirky golf courses and loved them, this one does indeed make Painswick and Pennard look benign in spots.

The great thing about P-porth is you realize the sportyness of the course right from the get go.  The fairway at the first slopes right to left like the Titanic before it went down and during the summer I wonder how you hold the fairway.  The green is no bargain either and falls away from you.

The 2nd hole is in my opinion the craziest on the course and should be a compendium of ALL WORLD quirky holes.  The first shot is blind over the dunes and I reckon you need to hit a high cut about 270ish.  If you can hit it near 300 you'll have a shot at seeing the green. If not, then you have
another blind shot that must be hit with a draw to the green over another sand hill.. And the green?  As Paul Turner stated, it is double hollowed and looks right out of NGLA!  One of the best greens I've seen in the United Kingdom.

The 3rd has one of the best skyline greens on the course, but don't worry you still have about 10 more after you finish that hole.  It very much reminded me of the approach to Ballybunion #2.  It looks like you can never hit a ball that high to hold the green, it is like approaching a green in heaven.

Paul Turner, that slack jawed John Lennon lookalike, is too proud to admit it but he almost aced the 4th hole knocking it to 3 inches from 200 yards with a 1 iron-- where is Lee Trevino?- cause only G-d and Paul Turner can hit that club.. We never saw it though as the hole is semi blind and
Paul figured it had redannish qualities which it did and he hit the softest draw with a 1 iron I'll ever see.

The 5th is another crazy par 5 which is a way reminded me of #16 at St. Enodoc because a great drive will go almost 350+ yards with the fairway's borrow and roll.  The tee shot frame is awesome b/t some sand hills and over another hill in the distance.  

The 6th played into the wind and reminded me a bit of Doak's #11 at Pac Dunes as bunkers short can catch a short iron approach. Paul and I both could not read the wind and wound up in the bunkers. Same thing (being short) happened to me at Pac Dunes.

The 8th is reachable but during the summer you'd have to play the opposite strategy of playing a hard fade to hold the fairway. Right now the slope aids a draw with a long iron-see Paul Turner 1 iron to hold the green.

At the 9th you see one of the drawbacks of Perranporth..There is a caravan on the course, yes a caravan, Paul and I even saw some crazy bloke driving on the sand dunes!

The back 9 is no less quirky than the front but I'd like to highlight some things.

The great par 5s continue with the 11th where it is OB to the right and a hard cut is needed again.

The 13th reaches the closest point to the ocean (although like Pennard the course is in the sky albeit probably only 100 feet or so--again like Pac Dunes).  We played the 13th into the setting sun over Perranporth beach which is one of the most fabulous views in golf.  The tri level green is
another Braid special. Who creates all of these blind shots and then these crazy greens???

The 14th was when I realized Paul Turner was a sick man, a spiteful man!  He hit a hook that went over a sand hill and yet somehow despite being 50 yards left wound up in the middle of the fairway.  Yes, the middle of the fairway for a hole that asked for a fade.  Now, I don't know what
divine power was in control here, I mean I prayed at the Church of St. Enodoc earlier that day for my golf game was shite and was rewarded by an amazing eagle at the 16th at St.Enodoc but this was spectacular.  Paul Turner can tell the story but there was someone listening to me in that heavenly church on hallowed turf.

Yardage, slope, hell everything in modern golf is thrown out at Perranporth.  It is like golf in the old days in the books that show British links in the late 1800s/early 1900s.  Sporty, fun against nature.  We told Tom Doak to go there at Painswick, I wonder what he thought.  Perhaps,
even too quirky for him.  

James Braid should be considered the king of quirky golf--Perranporth, Pennard and St. Enodoc, what a resume!

One last thing, Perranporth has perhaps the coolest symbol in golf, very akin to the golf we played there.  In truth, it is a black shadowy saint with a halo and staff facing the sun with a shark below him.  In reality, it looks like the grim reaper.  Quite spectacular.

PPS-those are NOT cart paths, they are crushed sea shell paths.. I don't like the look either, but it is natural.

[Pete Lavallee]

Thanks Paul and Noel, great photos. If the Polish Navy gives me a day off I will definetly being trying to get out there. The golf looks better than the cool shirts they sell there!

[Paul_Turner]

NAF

Good summary.  We need to get the logo up.

After a few days of nervous ticks and wanting to quit the game The NAFFER got on his knees at Betjamin's church...his golf got steadily better and then culminated with an eagle at the 16th.  Which might even convert me!

Matt

Perranporth beats Pennard in the wild category because its dunes are much larger and it still has the large elevation changes with the dramatic views of the sea.  

I do however prefer the castle ruin at Pennard to the caravans at Perranporth  

PS

Some of those skyline greens would become very difficult in a high wind (Pennard is a better course).

[Tiger_Bernhardt]

Noel aka the Poser did rave about this course over dinner so he deserved the explorer award for finding out of the way courses.

[RJ_Daley]

Has anyone noticed the matching quirky and variable skies, apparently alternating sun showers with overcast and then sun light again as these intrepid golfers made their way around the course?  You can actually enjoy these pictures by looking at the sky and not the quirkfest of grounds.  Paul and the Noel, I can only imagine what a fresh spring smell this course has to compliment the walking game through its mysterious dunes.  I don't think it can get any better than that.  Variable sky plays over rolling ground... the only other place I feel this happens is in the vastness of Nebraska sand hills.

[Paul_Turner]

RJ

Yes the light was atmospheric to say the least.  The change from the 13th to the 14th is going from into the sun to away.  The mist was rolling in from the sea.  My pics don't quite capture the beauty of the cliff/coastline, with the town and beach.  It's certainly one of the most beautiful courses anywhere.

[Michael_Hendren]

A future GCA Ryder Cup venue no doubt.

Paul,

Thanks.  Looks like the perfect place to loiter with intent.

Mike

[Gene Greco]

Mike:

   Kinda looks like that other place we first loitered intently, doesn't it?

[NAF]

I'd love to see a bunch of guys play Perranporth with plus fours and some hickories.. Then again, we can do that at Deal as the club pro is organzing events like that at Deal.  At Perranporth, I'd reckon no one would break 100 and certainly would lose some balls.

[Dan Kelly]

Paul Turner --

Thanks for the annotations.

You know, of all the many things I love in those pictures, I'm growing particularly fond of that little "GUR" sign in the picture with the three pulpit greens.

Thanks again.

[Robin_Hiseman]

Exceptional pictures Paul.  Noel's enthusiastic review of the course was spot on.  This looks like a must-play for quirkaholics.  

Incidentally, I played Hilton Park, near Glasgow yesterday.  They have a nice stone plaque outside the clubhouse presented to them by Perranporth GC, to commemorate their 75th anniversary.  The stone had the usual inscriptions and the club crest of both Hilton Park and Perranporth engraved upon it.  Given the 'Grim Reaper' motif of the Perranporth logo, it was with not a little irony that I noticed that the adjacent Hilton Park club flag was at half mast!

[Ed Tilley]

Just returned from a holiday in Cornwall - they should have played the Masters there, the weather was absolutely stunning. I managed to persuade my father in law to make a bit of a trip to play Perranporth, one of my favourites, which I hadn't played for some years. To my eternal discredit, particularly on account of the weather, I forgot my camera. I've therefore revived this old thread.

I would say that this really is one of the most fun courses on the planet. It's not a course to grind around with card in hand as, with all the blind shots, it can be a bit unfair - I absolutely smashed a drive right over the number on the crazy par 5 5th and never saw the ball again. However, I know of very few courses that present so many options on every shot.

You could go round this course without taking driver - there are no par 4's over 400 yards. Equally you could hit driver on every hole - most of the shorter par 4's are into the prevailing winds. On a number of holes you can safely play to one side of a fairway or green, only to leave yourself with a very difficult approach. There are some absolutely magnificent green sites - 2,3,4,5,6,7,8,11,12,13,14,16,17 are all superb and the others are good too. The greens are far from flat and it really doesn't pay to be downhill and downwind, even on a relatively calm day.

If you can't enjoy playing here you have no golfing soul. This course feels like it hasn't changed much for 50 years, and is all the better for it. Plus it has just about the coolest badge of any club - I now am the proud owner of a Perranporth 'grim reaper' polo shirt.

Finally, with a 2 for 1 voucher, the cost per day of this fantastic course is an extortionate £17.50!

[Doug Siebert]

Can you post a pic of that "grim reaper" logo on the shirt?  Sounds cool....and appropriate!

[Peter Pittock]

This link should get you to the logo:
http://www.perranporthgolfclub.co.uk/

[Peter Pittock]

TEPaul,
Those are deluxe trailers owned by the club and rented out to golfers. Info on their web site, see link on earlier post.

[Tom Yost]

My only comment is about how very out of place that cart path looks in that setting.


Tom