Royal West Norfolk...
...or Brancaster, as it's often called. This is one of England's special golfing places. It is an old-fashioned course, though it has undergone change over the years, mostly as a result of coastal erosion, and the course is very vulnerable still. Play it if you can for it may not last forever. It dates back to 1892 and most of today's course is the work of Horace Hutchinson and Holcombe Ingleby. To get to it you drive down a narrow lane across a salt marsh and, already, the atmosphere is unique. The clubhouse is a rambling old affair, like one of those dilapidated Italian restaurants that looks utterly shabby on the outside yet serves the most delicious fare inside.
The War Memorial Gate through which you pass for access to the course - no buggies here! It's all a throwback to another era with its sleepered bunkers, shared fairways and obsessive adherence to 2-ball match-play only. When first I played here the 13th was a long short hole but perhaps 20 years ago a green site was located in the dunes some way to the right of the original and it is now a 316-yard par 4, making the course 6,427 yards with a par of 71. The outward half is 331 yards longer than the back nine, but almost invariably the back nine is played into the wind, and, my goodness, it can blow fiercely here.
3rd, 403 yards par 4. There is no easy introduction at Brancaster with three solid two-shot holes, each over 400 yards. However, the approach to the 3rd is more fearsome than the others with a wall of sleepered bunkers to be carried 50 yards short of the green, which is raised up above steep drops into bunkers, wicked rough or out-of-bounds just through the back.
4th, 129 yards par 3. This green is no more than a pimple (21 yards deep) atop a mound protected by a huge sleepered fortification and a horrid bunker should you happen to bounce back from the sleepers.
4th. It looks so benign from here!
5th, 417 yards par 4. An exciting hole with a drive over a ridge to a fairway bounded by the dunes. Not only is the second shot played over a ridge and bunkers but the second half of the fairway is on a totally different line, as if shifted bodily to the right. The green is unbunkered, but there are 3 more on the approaches.
5th. If you miss the green wildly you are in this sort of jungle.
6th, 184 yards par 3. You then cross the 7th fairway to get to the 6th tee, in order to play this lovely par 3 alongside the salt marsh. When these photos were taken (late on a sultry summer's evening) there was little water there, but at high tides in winter the golf course can be cut off from the mainland.....
7th, 483 yards par 4. A good hole gradually narrowing towards the green with a pot bunker 50 yards short and the salt marsh awaiting the merest slice. The putting surface is only 23 yards deep. However, our thoughts are probably already on the next two holes, which follow....