After much deliberation, I decided on Hunstanton and played there today. I chose Hunstanton because it is a links course; it seemed very visitor friendly; and I didn't want to deal with the tides at Brancaster.
Playing with rental clubs, I had a blast. The temperature was above 50 fahrenheit and it didn't rain. The club secretary fixed me up with a 19-year old kid named Alex who was a pleasure to play with. He's two-years older than my son; was interested in America and seemed to be perfectly willing to let to me pontificate. A perfect partner.
I thought the course was difficult with relatively tight driving areas for such a windy site, particularly the back 9. At the start of the round Alex said that the wind was moderate but after a few holes he allowed that the breeze was pretty stiff and coming from something other than the normal direction. For those of you who are familar with the course, the wind was favoring on most of the outgoing holes and against on the inbound holes. There were a couple of 450-yard par 4's coming in that played really long. On one of them, 17, I was pin high with a driver/3-wood. I can't remember the last time I needed a 3-wood after a good drive on a par-4. On the other hand, on a downwind par 5 on the front side where you lay up off the tee because the hole crosses a road, I was pin-high after hitting 5-iron/3-wood.
By American country club standards the course is not in great shape, but it was more than playable and American country club standards are warped. Alex said the course used to have famously good greens but had messed them up by overseeding a few years ago and now there were two many grass types in the greens. I wouldn't say the conditions were fast and firm but it's December, after all.
Until today I had never played a links course and the experience wets my appetite for more. It's just so pure being out there confronting the elements. The course has some quirk such as a blind par 3, but nothing that I thought was over-the-line. Aside from the wind, the hardest part of the course for me was picking the proper line even if the shot wasn't blind per se. The fairway and rough sort of blends together visually. I was told that the rough was pretty benign at this time of year but, while I only lost one ball, I found recovering from the rough challenging. On one par 5 I drove into the left rough and hit the next three shots left as well because my club kept turning over in the rough.
Thanks to everybody who responded to this thread. Without this resource I doubt that I would have found Hunstanton.