British Courses 22

[Mark_Rowlinson]

Fulford


I had the pleasure of playing Fulford every summer for many years during the York Early Muisc Festival.  The Festival Chairman, John Marvin, was a member and it became an annual fixture.  It's a Mackenzie course, but not Alister, rather his brother C.A.  It's on a very flat site on the south east side of the city of York, close to where York University now stands.  Some years ago a major road was driven through the course and some original holes lost.  So now you play five holes out in a straight line from the clubhouse, cross a rather tiresome bridge, play eight holes in a loop on the far side, recross the bridge and play the last five holes in a straight line back to the clubhouse.  There are trees, lots of them, but for the most part they are only of consequence if you are particularly wayward.  A competent golfer has plenty of room to shape shots according to the strategy of the hole, the wind and so on.  The condition of the course has always been immaculate in my experience.  The holes on the far side of the A64 are heathland in nature (though they have abandoned trying to grow heather on one particularly well-placed ridge), rather more parkland on 1-5 and 14-18.  The Benson & Hedges Tournament on the European Tour was played here for many years in the 70s and 80s and the winners' board shows the names of Trevino, Jacklin, Norman and Weiskopf amongst others.  It was always a high-class field and scoring was low, but they never tricked up the course to make it tougher.  As a member today you play exactly the same course that they did.  From the back it measures 6775 yards with a par of 72.


3rd, 189 yards par 3.  Notice the rough which grows abundantly all over the course - the site is a real haven for wildlife.  The bunker in front of the green is about 20 yards short of the putting surface and invariably deceives the first time visitor.


4th, 458 yards par 4.  An excellent hole with the drive needing to skirt the inside of the slight right-handed dogleg or the second shot will probably be cut out by trees, particularly the big one on the left of the photo.  The green is narrow, raised up and lies just the other side of a shallow diagonal trench.  


4th from behind green.  It may look narrow, but there's plenty of room on the drive on the right of the photo, only for you to be cut off by the big tree.


5th, 167 yards par 3.  Rather a nondescript hole tucked into the last few yards of the course before crossing the A64.  I presume this was created when the course was severed.


5th - showing a hint of the gentle movement of the land and the greens which is characteristic of most holes.


6th, 561 yards par 5.  A handsome hole, framed by the trees.  They only affect a really awful shot.  There are three bunkers in the driving zone and two bunkers on the right of the approach to thwart those who attempt to get up in two but do not quite make it.  


8th, 371 yards par 4.  A hole to which I always look forward.  A good drive lands just where the fairway begins to turn right with a copse of trees on the inside of the dogleg and a big bunker on the left. (I think there are two there now).  Those who try to shorten the dogleg are then coming at this raised green at an angle and there are two bunkers on that side, one of them really eating into the putting surface.  


9th, 486 yards par 5.  The yellow tee is at 446 yards and from there the hole has been played as both a par 4 and a par 5.  I think it is better as a par 4, but the carry from the back tee is more challenging, over a great deal of rough ground and over a sliught ridge to a fairway angled right to left with a bunker on the inside at 210 yards and one on the outside at 250 yards.  The second shot must then clear a bank of rough (once heather but, alas, it couldn't be maintained) 150 yards from the green and avoid an insidious little bunker on the right, short of the green.  There is a sharp rise up to the putting surface which curls to the left around these two side bunkers.

More to follow....

[Mark_Rowlinson]

Fulford continued



10th, 165 yards par 3.  A wicked little hole with a long, thin, slightly angled green having a narrow entrance, two wing bunkers and some mischievous slopes.  No putt is ever conceeded on this green, however short and however friendly the match!


11th, 504 yards par 5.  The yellow tee makes the hole 458 yards (again played as a par 4 and 5 at different times).  It's a very strong hole as a par 4, but you miss the excitement of the drive from the white tee, back in a low corner with a serious carry over hostile country to a fairway with a bunker on the right at 240 yards and another, a real sand pit, at aboput 280/290.  There is a depression running across the fairway in front of the green, so the front part of the putting surface rises steeply.  It's quite a difficult green to hit and hold from distance.


12th, 321 yards par 4.  What seems to be a most straighforward short par 4, bunkerless at that, is complicated by the narrow spine in the fairway on the approach, throwing many a ball off to depressions on either side, and by the narrowness of the raised green.  It is no easy hole for the middle or high handicapper.


13th, 473 yards par 4.  A terrific hole with a drive out over gorse to a fairway set some way to the right.  There is much trouble off the fairway to the left (particularly a deep ditch beyond which is the OOB hedge) but in aiming for safety on the right many drive too far and end up behind a tree and well out of range of the green.


13th.  This bunker is about 110 yards short of the green, the one on the right 72 yards short of it.  They are irrelevant to a good player who has driven well, but of significance if the drive found the rough or, worse, the trees.

More to come....

[Mark_Rowlinson]

Fulford conclusion



13th green.  Well protected by the single bunker on the right, a rise in the putting surface and the intrusive depression on the left, down which many a weak approach disappears.


14th, 175 yards par 3.  I hate the topiary which must be carried from the tee - like a vicarage garden - but it indicates where the stream is, running across the front of the green.  There is also a considerable amount of low, dead ground in front of and to either side of the green, which is a curious shape, raised slightly with a distinct sharpness to the left edge, off which many a quite reasonable tee shot may bounce at right angles into the OOB hedge.  Not my favourite hole.


16th, 335 yards par 4.  After another very strong long par 4 on the 15th comes this tiddler.  There is plenty of room from the tee, yet very frequently the player using an iron from the tee for safety finds himself behind a stand of trees on the left, or cut off by silver birches on the right further on.  Like the 12th, this green is long, thin and rises steeply at the front.  The bunkers are awkward if you only just trickle in.


17th, 356 yards par 4.  Another short par 4, and quite a famous one.  There is abundant room from the tee, but the fairway bends past a big oak tree 84 yards from the green.  get behind that and you may have no shot at all.  In keeping away from that it is all too easy to get behind a stand of trees on the left.  There is actually a very small margin for directional error off the tee.  The green is on the far side of a stream and there are two bunkers on the right.  On the left is a large tree, almost overhanging the green.  Bernhard Langer climbed ten or twelve feet up into this tree in order to play his ball onto the green when his approach shot lodged between a branch and the trunk.

[Jonathan Davison]

Mark
I recently played Fulford and I was really disappointed, the only real good holes are the ones over the road more heathland in character and offered more in strategic value. The course would benefit from a major tree clearance programme to give more strategy. I agree it was in excellent condition.

[Marc Haring]

It seems strange now seeing these pictures of what was once a regular tournament venue. It appears as a quaint, unpretentious members course, quite alien to the corporate monstrosities that have infested the euro tour calendar since.    

[Mark_Rowlinson]

Marc,

You're right.  There were some very charming courses used in the past, including Wilmslow just down the road from me, the very essence of an unpretentious members' club.  The PGA Championship was held at Maesdu, Pannal, Ashburnham, Coventry, Royal Mid-Surrey, Little Aston, Western Gailes, Prince's, Saunton, Thorndon Park and Dunbar as well as Sandwich, Birkdale, TOC, Ganton and Hillside before settling permanently at Wentworth in 1984.  The Irish Open also visited lesser-known courses and clubs.  In the early days it more or less rotated between R Co Down, Portmarnock, Portrush and Royal Dublin, but it also made excursions to Cork, Malone, Belvoir Park and Woodbrook.  I note that Crenshaw won at Portmarnock in 1976 and by then it was almost permanently settled on Portmarnock or Royal Dublin and the list of winners is impressive including Hubert Green, Ken Brown, Mark James, Sam Torrance, Ballesteros, Langer, Woosnam and Olazabal before two years of Faldo at Killarney and then a run at Mount Juliet and Druids Glen.  I looked forward to 2000 when it was held at Ballybunion but it didn't seem to attract a quality field.

Jonny,

I don't expect everyone to like all the courses I've posted or will be posting.  In time I hope to give a reasonable cross-section of golf in the British Isles in all its different facets.  There'll be some rough-and-ready places and even a few bad courses - all in the sake of accuracy!

[Tags:]

Tags:

[Tags:]

Tags: