Peper's "True Links" mistake? Swansea Bay vs Langland Bay

[Garland Bayley]

In the book True Links Swansea Bay golf course is listed as a links. However, when I look at on Google Earth I see a course set back a ways from the bay with several tree lined fairways. However, Langland Bay golf course nearby, has several holes next to the ocean (bay) also with some tree lined farways.

Does anyone have knowledge why Swansea would be listed as the links, while Langland is not?

[Duncan Cheslett]

Langland Bay GC is a headland course, occupying the cliff-tops between Langland and Caswell Bays. Its a nice course with stunning views but it isn't on linksland.

http://www.vrvistas.com/360virtualtour/langlandbaygolfclub/index.html


I don't know Swansea Bay but I have to agree that the club website doesn't portray it as 'linksy' in the least.

http://www.swanseabaygolfclub.co.uk/index.htm

[Garland Bayley]

Thanks Duncan,

I didn't even think to look across the freeway on Google Earth when looking at Swansea Bay. Looking at the website map of the course didn't look right, so I had to look back at Google Earth, and I see the holes across the freeway have a much better chance of being links land.

I sent them an email message through their website earlier, but got no response.

[Tony_Muldoon]

Sean has done a profile of Swansea Bay on here but typically I can't find it.


Its lost some of its links holes but it's more links than not.

[Sean_A]

Swansea Bay is about half links.  The other holes aren't quite parkland, not sure how they should be classified.  If you are stuck for a game in the area it isn't a bad choice - a lot of good holes.  The biggest drawbacks are the noisy motorway (one par 5 plays directly under an exit ramp) and the wet conditions in winter.  Links?  Tight call, but its his book.

Ciao

[Cristian]

It looks a lot less linksier than this course: (which surprisingly is not in the book)





Dinard Golf course

http://dinardgolf.com/english/

[Ulrich Mayring]

Dinard, like Etretat, is headland though, not linksland.

Ulrich

[Cristian]

Dinard, like Etretat, is headland though, not linksland.

Ulrich

It may be cliff edge but the grounds are sandy, fast and firm with micro-undulations formed by wind erosion, everything one would want from links turf. Have not played Etretat, but it looks very very different to Dinard and more like Downland courses in the UK, or Sperone, Wimereux, types of courses with different turf; Chalk+Clay, not sand (on Rock) based.  Dinard is sand on rock because the clifftops are not as high and steep (like Pennard, Ballybunion, Bandon) and therefore the sand has been blown on the coast from the sea, creating similar linksland.

[Thomas Dai]

Garland,

I've not found the old GCA tour of SBGC but I wrote a little summary about Swansea Bay in the recent 'What a spectacular piece of land' thread. The thread was really about a piece of land opposite Southerndown but expanded, as they do, into S.Wales generally. "I understand that Swansea Bay GC is the original/first golf course in the Swansea area. Late 1800's I believe. Built on low lying linksland-come-estuary area close to where the River Neath joins the sea. Numerous industrial development, some now gone, progressed east of Swansea Docks in the 19thC and around Briton Ferry/Baglan etc too plus later the (now gone) oil refinery at Llandarcy. Now there's the motorway bridges and the dual-carriageway that splits the course in two. Must have been a nice spot once-upon-a-time, but now it kind of reminds me of the opening credits to the Soprano's where Tony's driving his car along the freeway with heavy industrialisation in the background. See - http://www.swanseabaygolfclub.co.uk/ - for more about SBGC." and see - http://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,59184.0.htm - for the other thread mentioned above.

As to Langland Bay, it came along later than SBGC (& Pennard) and although it may look coastal from a satmap I go along with what Duncan says, namely that it's a headland course.

While on the subject of Swansea area courses, there's a tour of Clyne GC from 2003 but the photos don't come up on my computer. Is this just my computer or do photos from a long time ago somehow drop off 'the system'?

atb

[Tony_Muldoon]

Another mistake was to leave this one out. The firmest and  fastest course I've ever played  and that was at Easter!

http://www.devonlinksgolf.com/


Could not say it's worth a detour and it is short and flattish with a few dyes to add interest,  but I left with a big smile on my face and a vow to get back.

[Garland Bayley]

Another mistake was to leave this one out. The firmest and  fastest course I've ever played  and that was at Easter!

http://www.devonlinksgolf.com/


Could not say it's worth a detour and it is short and flattish with a few dyes to add interest,  but I left with a big smile on my face and a vow to get back.

I scanned that coast too for possible places to play on my trip to Buda, and wondered too why that was not a links.

Some of the locations marked for courses on maps in the book are well of the true location, so I wondered if this was another example of a mistake until Duncan set me straight.

[Steve Salmen]

He lists Durness as a links course.  I don't think it qualifies.

[Paul Gray]

Littlehampton is VERY borderline.

You start playing links golf but then skirt in and out of it throughout the round. Broadly speaking, the linksland stops quite abruptly as soon as you get away from the beach. There are a few holes where you literally have linksland on one side of the fairway and something I'll call marshland on the other. 

[Tony_Muldoon]

Littlehampton is VERY borderline.

You start playing links golf but then skirt in and out of it throughout the round. Broadly speaking, the linksland stops quite abruptly as soon as you get away from the beach. There are a few holes where you literally have linksland on one side of the fairway and something I'll call marshland on the other. 

Paul

But is it worth playing?

[Paul Gray]

Littlehampton is VERY borderline.

You start playing links golf but then skirt in and out of it throughout the round. Broadly speaking, the linksland stops quite abruptly as soon as you get away from the beach. There are a few holes where you literally have linksland on one side of the fairway and something I'll call marshland on the other. 

Paul

But is it worth playing?

Honestly, no.

And why didn't Dinard qualify? I stayed at the hotel just by the course a number of years back on a golf trip with my dad. The weather was shocking and there was no convincing my dad, essentially a non-golfer, that he would enjoy a round out there. Safe to say I was disappointed.