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Mark_Rowlinson

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Bull Bay
« on: November 20, 2008, 05:20:21 AM »
Seeing the thread on Bull's Bay reminded me to show you these pictures.

Bull Bay is on the Isle of Anglesey, off the Welsh coast. It is the most northerly course in Wales. Although it overlooks the sea it is not a links, but its challenges are seaside in nature: gorse, rocky outcrops, severely undulating ground and wind – lots and lots and lots of it. I need not relate the history of the club, for it is well covered on the website, other than to say it is a WH Fowler design of 1913: http://www.bullbaygc.co.uk/golfhome.php There are some beautiful photos on the website.

Tom Williamsen (who features in some of pictures) described it perfectly as knob-to-knob. There are some marvellous spots for tees, and there are some very testing uphill approaches to greens. Upkeep is not what you would find at an American country club, but the green fee is a reasonable £33 on a weekday, £38 at the weekend. Above all, it is a very friendly place – something I find at most Welsh clubs, despite my coming from the far side of Offa’s Dyke.



This could be a view on almost any part of the course. If you take a look beyond the course boundaries you see more of this same sort of countryside. Fowler could have laid out 72 holes, had they been wanted.

1. 370 yards par 4. An uphill opener to a typically bumpy fairway, followed by a pitch up to a ledge green.


2. 392 yards par 4. Another uphill drive, this time to a distant summit, on the far side of which the approach is played over a little lane to a green, slightly raised in a dell. 



3. 220 yards par 3. A tough par three played over gorse and bumpy ground from a tee by the hut on the right of the top picture. The green is very unreceptive and there is plenty of trouble if you hit the side of the green and bounce wildly away.



4. 383 yards par 4. Looking back from the green (the tee is on the distant hill just above the flag) it is easy to see the general left-hand curve of the hole. The temptation is to go straight for it and, from a heavy lie in the rough, the approach is to a green angled sharply right-to-left, running down to the back of the green. Silly shot!



5. 175 yards par 3. Fun short hole played semi-blind over this shoulder of land. Tom getting in some sneaky practice!


6. 310 yards par 4. A lovely tee shot with reward for hitting it far. I doubt the bunkers are Fowler’s. If you don’t make it far enough over the bank you can find yourself with a difficult stance for the approach to what is the least interesting green on the course. It doesn’t look as if our practice was doing us much good!




7. 426 yards par 4. The hardest hole on the course. From the tee it is difficult to decide the right line to take. The approach is particularly tricky with that hut on the left, another mound on the right and a distinct step up to the putting surface.






8. 475 yards par 5. Another corker, with an exciting drive. The closer you get to the green the steeper the approach becomes.





9. 347 yards par 4. A wonderful hole. Although the downhill drive is welcoming it is easy to drive too far into gorse or a ditch, and if you lay up you may finish on a rough-covered mound on the left. The pitch is exquisite, up and over a rocky face to a deliciously sited green with no room for error on the right, and quite a slope on the putting surface.




10. 195 yards par 3. I’m not sure about the bunkers. This is a testing hole with slopes affecting play, the green having a distinct step and significant fall from back to front.



11. 505 yards par 5. Another exciting drive, with plenty of interest to follow as the fairway bumbles across rolling country towards the green, where the problems have not ended. Look how the putting surface races away at the back.





12. 197 yards par 3. This is so out of character with the rest of the course that I wonder if it is a Fowler hole. Straightforward.


13. 317 yards par 4. A risk/reward uphill hole curling left towards the green. I am not at all sure about that fairway bunker.


14. 425 yards par 4. A remarkable hole. As you look at the first photograph you need to know that the green is below that white house on the left of the picture. There is all sorts of temptation to cut off some of the dogleg, but as subsequent photos reveal the trouble on the left is severe. The climb to the green is steep, too.




15. 486 yards par 5. Yet another inviting drive followed by a climb to the green.





16. 174 yards par 3. A deceptive hole. You don’t really notice the depression in front of the green from the tee.




17. 433 yards par 4. Quite a tough hole, a climbing double dog-leg on which it is difficult to determine the best line as you play the shots.


18. 446 yards par 4. A friendly home hole, downhill all the way to the green. Keep out of the gorse!


« Last Edit: November 20, 2008, 05:27:41 AM by Mark_Rowlinson »

RJ_Daley

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Re: Bull Bay
« Reply #1 on: November 20, 2008, 12:30:17 PM »
Wow, what a beautiful ground over which to golf your ball!

Maybe they need a remake of the Welsh movie and call it:  "How Green and Golden Was My Valley".   ;D 8)
No actual golf rounds were ruined or delayed, nor golf rules broken, in the taking of any photographs that may be displayed by the above forum user.

Tony_Muldoon

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Re: Bull Bay
« Reply #2 on: November 20, 2008, 04:21:50 PM »
Were those pictures taken last month?  I knew Tommy was over but the weather in London was drear all week; I'm pleased if he found some good days.

Last time we took a ferry from Holyhead we got to the port early and I managed to persuade my very nervous wife (she likes being early on travels) that we should tour the Island and we couldn't get lost as long as we kept the sea on the right hand side.  I'm sure we passed the club and it looked most interesting and just as your first photo.  She was not in the mood to allow me to pop in.  So thank for posting these great photos Id love to play it.


George Houghton "the Golf Addict" recommended the club and said he was told that the great Braid once took an 8 on the 229 yard par 3 in an exhibition match. He also commented on the routing which allows you to choose loops of 4, 7, 9 or eighteen holes.  One of these loops being known as the Wallasey Eight.
Let's make GCA grate again!

Noel Freeman

Re: Bull Bay
« Reply #3 on: November 20, 2008, 04:29:18 PM »
Thanks to Rowlie, I played here in September and was much impressed.  I had a very difficult day with 40 knot breezes but to call this a hidden gem is an understatement.

The front 9 is a true joy.  You stand on the front tee and immediately look at the property and the daunting uphill 1st hole and silently say "whoa"..

It would be a boring slog of verbose wordiness to take one thru the whole course but I would say this:

Bull Bay is a lesson in tee and green placement.  The folded lobes of land really show you how Fowler learned his lessons and used them to perfection later on at Eastward Ho!

It plays very much in many respects to me as a downland course, sort of like Southerndown...

There are a few holes that are not Fowler--think 12?, but you'd notice them straight away.

The bunkering is sparse and nothing to look at.  In addition there was some tree planting (think hole #9 which is still a great one) and on #15 that is out of character..

I would imagine in summer when hard and fast it is a true/fun challenge with the ball bouncing all over the place..

I would echo Mark's sentiment and put it on an itinerary for say Nefyn and Conwy.

Mark_Rowlinson

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Re: Bull Bay
« Reply #4 on: November 21, 2008, 05:53:21 AM »
Tony, The pictures were taken a couple of years ago in the early spring. The one or two grainy pictures were 35mm slides taken some years ago, early 1990s I should think.

Rich Goodale

Re: Bull Bay
« Reply #5 on: November 21, 2008, 08:14:54 AM »
Great stuff, Mark

I must admit that I am as daft about gorse in bloom as Macenziephiles are about eye-candy bunkering, so I assume that Bull Bay is vaut le detour.  Here's a thought experiment--if Muirfield had gorse would Pine Valley, the Old Course, Royal Melbourne., etc. be perennially relegated to competing for a place ion the top-5?

Thakns

Rich

Mark_Rowlinson

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Re: Bull Bay
« Reply #6 on: November 21, 2008, 09:52:41 AM »
Rich, It's not a great course but it is enormous fun, even if it is a hard course on which to play to your handicap. It's a far better course than Nefyn. It's a 2-hour drive for me, but well worth it. Mark.

Tommy Williamsen

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Re: Bull Bay
« Reply #7 on: November 21, 2008, 02:24:01 PM »
Thanks Mark.  We had a great day there.  Bull Bay ranks very high on my fun meter.  I also think that Fowler brilliantly used the land.  If a "Fazio" got hold of this land today it would have been bulldozed into non-existence. Fowler may have designed courses into the existing landscape as well as anyone of his era.

Number nine is, as you put it, "mad."  I think I could play it every day.  Sometimes I would lay up and sometimes I would try to blast it to the upper fairway.  What a great hole.  It is unlike anything anyone has ever designed.
Where there is no love, put love; there you will find love.
St. John of the Cross

"Deep within your soul-space is a magnificent cathedral where you are sweet beyond telling." Rumi

Dónal Ó Ceallaigh

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Re: Bull Bay
« Reply #8 on: January 21, 2012, 04:31:28 PM »
Bump!

Never heard of this course and hadn't seen this photo tour before, but some of the holes scream "fun".

Duncan Cheslett

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Re: Bull Bay
« Reply #9 on: March 26, 2012, 02:38:05 AM »
Typically for a Mancunian born in the 1960's I spent most of my childhood holidays on Anglesey - then a 5 hour drive away! Mark's photos bring memories of the distinctive coastal landscape flooding back.

Interestingly for me, my late grandfather was for several years a country member at Bull Bay and spent a good part of every summer there in his retirement living in his tiny camper van and playing golf from dawn until dusk. I'd no idea that it was such a lovely looking course.

I feel a father and son camping/golfing trip coming along this summer...



PS  I just spotted their twilight rate of £10!!!  I can't think of a nicer way of spending a summer's evening.
« Last Edit: March 26, 2012, 02:53:08 AM by Duncan Cheslett »

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