I can't recall being so disappointed by a supposedly top rate course than I was with Pyle & Kenfig. There wasn't much about it that I could love, save for the admittedly excellent 14th hole and decent par 3 15th.
I was well aware of the supposed discrepancy in quality between the front and back nines and actually found 1-9 better than anticipated. It was the back nine which was the let down. The 10th is just an awful hole, flanked by ugly ditches climbing gently up a wet field. Things get better from 11-15, but the impressive dunes are ruined through being shrouded in a dense cloak of bracken. This invasive weed strangles the attraction of this land and at this time of year, when it is on the turn, it becomes a depressing brown fog of ferns. Probably looks a whole lot better in the spring, before it has taken hold. 16-17 return to the inland nature and are both strong holes, but not especially attractive. 18 reprises the 10th in reverse.
The club itself is warm and friendly and couldn't have done more for our group. It's just a shame that the course doesn't live up to their hospitality.
To end on a positive, the best part of the course comes when you stand on the high 14th tee, taking in the view over 1,300 acres of the most remarkable duneland. Enough space in there for 4 or 5 spacious 18-holers, but not likely golf will ever get a go in there. As our very own Ben Stephens has postulated, if P&K could ever move entirely over the road and extend into this duneland it could easily develop a course worthy of Wales first major championship venue. Porthcawl has aspirations in this regard and is only one land purchase away from being in the game, but P&K would have the better course if it were ever possible to get into the Kenfig dunes.
I heard talk that a clearing out of the bracken on the dunes was on the cards and I hope this is true. You don't need to guess too hard to figure out which design company has been engaged to engineer sand scrapes in the dunes...