Played Swinley late last week - decent weather, played ok, good lunch, but i confess the course did not thrill me. Been rather dry of late and they dont have much in the way of a sprinkler system and so course was rather parched - but i dont mind that, it was really that the course didnt live up to expectations.
Some lovely moments and some of the greens were splendid - but then you would come across a hole that just had lots of heather covered humps scattered all over the place that really just seemed to look rather silly. The 8th for example is a beauty - simple and clever, but then the 9th gets all silly - lovely shape to the hole, but they have these two long, heather covered linear mounds that jut right out into the fairway from the right side. Hole bends to the left, jungle and bunkers on the left and then they effectively build two fences across the right hand side of the fairway?
I am sure I will offend some, but it lacked the quality of other courses in the area and seemed very contrived at times - perhaps contrived 100 years ago, but still contrived.