As a Devon-born and Somerset-raised GCA novice, please may I register a slightly different West Country Top Five
1) Westward Ho!
2) St Enedoc
3=) Burnham and Berrow
3=) Saunton East
5) Saunton West
with Broadstone tied at fifth equal if Dorset is included in this West Country cohort. I know that not everybody on GCA feels the love for RND, but I still think it offers a matchless golfing experience, with the stretch from the 3rd to the 11th offering some of the best natural golf in the world, and the whole providing (to me anyway) an unrivalled sense of 'golf in a recreational landscape'. In addition, is there any clubhouse more atmospheric than that at the Ho!? Last time I was there in 2009 I also enjoyed a fabulous pork roll and homemade broccoli soup for, if memory serves, three pounds all in. A distinct preference for RND over Saunton and B&B is a minority view, I fully appreciate, but it's one I shall continue to defend!
At a less elevated level, I have heard good things in the past about both Minehead and Dawlish Warren, with the latter once described me to as akin to 'St Andrews in miniature', but that may well be over-egging the creamy Devon pudding. A West Country inland course that emphatically deserves a mention is Moretonhampstead (Bovey Castle), a Dartmoor favourite of Henry Longhurst in the 1926 design of which I recall his old Addington friend JF Abercromby had the dominant hand. I am not sure of its current 'country house hotel' status - it was historically in the same railway-owned British Transport Hotels stable as Turnberry and Gleneagles, but that world has long since gone...afficionadoes of Lonhgurst may recall that in Talking about Golf ( a collection of post-war articles for the British weekly Golf Illustrated) he gives his recipe for the ideal English golfing holiday. 'On one of the last occasions I was at Westward Ho! I joined a friend who was at that time fortunate enough to possess a Continental Bentley and for a week we made splendid progress around the West Country, starting at Burnham and Berrow, then moving to 'The Ho!' and Saunton, then to St Enedoc and Trevose, and finally home across Dartmoor with a call at that lovely course and hotel, Moretonhampstead. Whenever people ask me for suggestions for a golfing holiday, that is what I give them - always stipulating that they avoid the months of July and August'. Subject to that stipulation, and even without a Continental Bentley. that still seems to me a pretty wonderful trip, even if the summer green fees at one or two (although by no means all) of the chosen venues would make Henry blanch more than somewhat...