<<< ATTENTION K-MART SHOPPERS !!! ATTENTION K-MART SHOPPERS !!! >>>Effective IMMEDIATELY and until further notice the
England Section of our
Fine Golf Courses Collection willl no longer stock Woodhall Spa (Hotchkin).
Recent placements of the course in Golf World and Golf Magazine rankings, you have told us, no longer represent the value-for-ranking you have come to depend upon from us.
Although we believe the course is very good and, as you, our loyal customers, will note, we do not put much stock (heh, we are a retailer) in rankings (they are not aimed at their customers or ours but directly or indirectly at their advertisers), nevertheless we believe the course is overranked to the point where our customers and their expectations may be affected.
Indeed, we have read carefully your comments placed in our BlueLight Comments Box. We understand these comment not not necessarily affect your willingness to play the course but rather relate to its current value-for-ranking. A representative sampling of comments includes:
- ‘Surprising lack of variety off the tee -- angles, absolutely, but too many forced carries down tree “framed” corridors to blind fairways’
- ‘Excellent fairway bunkering but much of the challenge off the tees, often unremarked, consists of a forced carry to an LZ not defined by the bunkers but by tree-choked margins of hole’
- ‘Many shots are “defined” by hitting down tree-lined, alleys’
- ‘Green complexes can feel a little repetitive once the golfer is deep into his round. Bunkers on the flanks with raised greenside lips; greens proper lack internal contour’
- ‘Openings to greens too frequently defined by bunkers on either side’
- ‘Forced carries off tee plus bunker-choked green entrances result in loss of “dimensionality,” specifically high reliance upon aerial game’
- ‘Relative (note: relative to other English courses) reliance on aerial game knocks down the fun quotient a notch’
- ‘Not equally challenging and fun for all types of games / golfers’
- ‘Location, routing, and bracken forests lead me to suspect the course does not get as much action from the available wind as it could -- or perhaps there’s just not as much wind on offer as at other, unnamed inland courses’
- ‘Routing does not relate each hole to the larger whole (like that, guvnah?) -- more like an odyssey, not a bad routing at all, in fact a nice walk through a forest, but lacks the “puzzle-piece nesting” of trapezoid / polygon routing / property types’
- ‘Flattish, “point and click” greens’
- ‘Overly dependent on creating challenge from the tee end rather than from the green end as you prefer’
- ‘One does not feel a proper communion with the rest of the course’
Looks like a curate might have been sneaking off for a round, that last commenter! Sorry, right...
Clearly Hotchkin is a course of great quality; the above comments simply indicate it is not perfection, much less the third-best course in England, as this latest ranking would have us believe.
We share your belief that Hotchkin’s current ranking is unsustainable; however, until you our loyal customers tell us it has returned to its rightful, ranking value-appropriate position, we will continue to serve you via our outstanding rota of properly-ranked English courses.
We remind you Hotchkin continues to be available at Waitrose and other purveyors of overranked goods.
Thank you!
The Management