Play will be faster when the course starts in town....

[Tony_Muldoon]

Golf is (a bit) like the Catholic Church, many things to many people.


Here a neat quote from another thread today,

This is more a geographical feature than something designed, but I do love a course that starts and finishes or runs through a village.  Best recent example is the wonderful course at Elie in Scotland, where you play down to the village on a long par 3, then walk across a busy street and play past a neighborhood down to the beach and linksland, and then back to the village to finish up.

Often on here you can read similar thoughts about St Andrews, Lahinch or North Berwick.  A couple of years ago I spent a week in North Berwick with my family.  It was a pleasure to wander from our flat in Market Square down to the clubhouse carrying my pencil bag and shoes.  Leave 15 mins before the agreed tee off time and still have a quick putt before starting.  I felt I was enjoying what Melvyn might call a Scotsman's birthright. I had easy access to a wonderful time as enjoyed by many over the centuries, and all enjoyed as one part of the day.  On the second time I played I was lucky enough to be invited to follow the  round with a pint in the Tantallon Club. About five hours after setting off I arrived 'home' refreshed in every way.

If I get into my car at home and drive 45 mins each way:

1) As it may be some time before I get another day to play golf I'll want to warm up and hit practice balls.
2) The pace of play will be slower as people turn golf into a day out.
3) I will record every detail of what I score.
4)  I won't be enjoying a couple of pints before my drive home afterwards.
5) Be lucky to get home 6.30 mins after setting off.

It's an inevitable consequence of the way we live today....

[Philippe Binette]

play is faster because the pub is closer to the course

[Richard Phinney]

I too think this is an under-rated aesthetic appeal of a links course that nudges right up against an historic town at some point.  Not many of them do, and Berwick is surely one of the most satisfying in this regard, more so somehow than even St. Andrews.  It seems to encapsulate the centuries-old importance of golf to the community (most of these centrally located links are public as they evolved common land) and also evokes the pre-car era.  Montrose routes its way back into town (and out again) quite satisfyingly, but you don't see the sweep of substantial old buildings that you do at Berwick or St. Andrews.  I live in a densely populated neighbourhood 7 minutes walk from Montrose's first  tee and as a transplanted North American that walk to the course never ceases to thrill me. Just the fact that I am walking there. As almost everyone used to.  (Gotta say the Scots I know by and large don't seem to share this thrill, quite content to drive very short distances to the club). 

[Melvyn Morrow]

Richard

I will always drive to the course but then my preference is to play the game by walking. Just can’t understand the point of playing golf if you ride, it in part distracts one from the game plus missing out on the world around. The only time I have walked to the course is from my grandfather’s house with its passage way to the left side of Old Tom’s shop to the Links. That’s a long enough walk from home with my clubs, but that was way back in the 1960/70’s and his house is now in the hands of the R&A (being originally Old & Young Tom’s home on Pilmour Links).

I will keep walking on the course, after all we Scots don’t want to wear  out our shoes on the cobbles so it makes sense to drive. 

Tony, my old grasshopper getting wise with age.

Melvyn

[Mark_Rowlinson]

Silloth feels very attached to the town, and you play across the back of the houses on the 1st and 18th at Seascale.

The railway can always bring a golf course within walking distance and that is particularly so of those famous links courses along the Lancashire coast and others on the Ayrshire coast.

The old Royal Blackheath and several of the older London courses which play on public land, such as Wimbledon, certainly feel 'in' the town. With its views over London Dulwich and Sydenham Hill seems as close as you can get to central London, although it probably isn't, geographically.

I always like that little lane leading down past the houses of Old Hunstanton to get to that fine (underrated?) links.

Southfield, that Colt course in Oxford, is very 'connected' with its own bit of Oxford, although not the dreaming spires bit.

[Andrew Mitchell]

Golf is (a bit) like the Catholic Church, many things to many people.


Here a neat quote from another thread today,

This is more a geographical feature than something designed, but I do love a course that starts and finishes or runs through a village.  Best recent example is the wonderful course at Elie in Scotland, where you play down to the village on a long par 3, then walk across a busy street and play past a neighborhood down to the beach and linksland, and then back to the village to finish up.

Often on here you can read similar thoughts about St Andrews, Lahinch or North Berwick.  A couple of years ago I spent a week in North Berwick with my family.  It was a pleasure to wander from our flat in Market Square down to the clubhouse carrying my pencil bag and shoes.  Leave 15 mins before the agreed tee off time and still have a quick putt before starting.  I felt I was enjoying what Melvyn might call a Scotsman's birthright. I had easy access to a wonderful time as enjoyed by many over the centuries, and all enjoyed as one part of the day.  On the second time I played I was lucky enough to be invited to follow the  round with a pint in the Tantallon Club. About five hours after setting off I arrived 'home' refreshed in every way.

If I get into my car at home and drive 45 mins each way:

1) As it may be some time before I get another day to play golf I'll want to warm up and hit practice balls.
2) The pace of play will be slower as people turn golf into a day out.
3) I will record every detail of what I score.
4)  I won't be enjoying a couple of pints before my drive home afterwards.
5) Be lucky to get home 6.30 mins after setting off.

It's an inevitable consequence of the way we live today....

This is one of the great things about links golf in many of the old Scottish towns, where you get the feeling that golf is a game of the people and part of the fabric of the town.  Both North Berwick & Elie are excellent examples of this, as is The Old Course.  Other examples where the course start/finish in the town are Gullane and Old Moray at Lossiemouth.

[Peter Pallotta]

Tony - that description of your time at North Berwick has stayed with me for two days now.  A golf course as much a part of the town and of everyday life as the local pub and the parish church and the butcher-shop on the corner.  How lovely. It might explain a lot about why such courses were designed the way they were.

Thanks
Peter

[Philippe Binette]

How about Leven and Lundin Links... the course use to be the fastest road between the two towns...

OK, I'm going to see John in Lundin...instead of just walking, why not play nine on the way out and nine later tonight on the way back...

Scotland's great.

[Sean_A]

Often overlooked in these sorts of discussions are Deal, Ballybunion, Lahinch, Cruden Bay and Prestwick.  Mind you, Prestwick, Ballybunion and Cruden Bay aren't in such a nice towns.  Others are very short walk without much of a town feel: Harlech, Tenby, Hoylake & Aberdovey.  Others like Wallasey have been consumed by the suburbs.  And of course you have the ones where a boat ride is still available.  I usually take the foot ferry over from Padstow to Rock for St Enodoc - it feels right.

Ciao

[Mark Pearce]

The 9 hole course at Chorleywood, Herts where I used to be a member is also set by a (rather smart) residential area.  The clubhouse is a few doors along from a pub.  I used to live round the corner and walk past the first tee every morning and evening on my way to and from the station where I got my train to work.

[Bill_McBride]

Tony - that description of your time at North Berwick has stayed with me for two days now.  A golf course as much a part of the town and of everyday life as the local pub and the parish church and the butcher-shop on the corner.  How lovely. It might explain a lot about why such courses were designed the way they were.

Thanks
Peter

GCA's own John "Tiger" Bernhardt was hoping to develop a golf course in Lafayette, Louisiana back when the economy was booming, with the theme as I recall of a village setting for the club and course.  That would be a wonderful setting but it could be years before the economy is ready for such a plan.