DISCLAIMER: This review of Beauport Park Golf Course draws from three visits to play the course in 1984, 1997 and 2017, the last of which was used to photograph the course. It transpires that this last visit coincided with a period of time in which the leasehold management of the course was ‘questionable’, resulting in the course shutting its doors on September 1st 2018. Fortunately, a new management team, led by local Sussex golf pro and former Beauport Park head pro, Roger Hyder, has bought out the lease and is investing heavily in the course and a new clubhouse. Reports suggest the course and club is on the upturn again and that it is looking better than it has for decades. I wish them well, because it is a remarkable golf course. My review might be perceived as somewhat critical, but is meant to be mischievous and self-deprecating, questioning why I keep going back to beat myself up on what is widely regarded as the most challenging course in the south of England. It’s approaching its 50th season, yet the course record is still a measly 2-under-par. You could say it has a strong resistance to scoring. You’re about to find out how.OK. Let’s start with some notices. The useful ‘Sean Arble’ bit where he tells you about the history of a place. If I don’t do it now, it won’t fit into the narrative of the tale to follow, so imagine this is the beginning of Star Wars and the following three paragraphs are drifting slowly over your head. Once that is done, strap yourself in and hang on…TIGHT! Things are going to get scary.
The golf course at Beauport Park was commissioned by Hastings Borough Council, who engaged golf architect Frank Pennink to design a ‘championship’ course for public play. At just 6,180 Yards, Par 71, it was never going to be the host of any significant championships. It is laid out through a 200-acre parcel of the former 5,000-acre estate of the adjacent Beauport Park House, which was built between 1763 and 1766 by General Sir James Murray. Murray planted many rare and unusual trees around the estate, which can still be found throughout the course, especially on the 3
rd, 10
th and 12
th holes. There are probably many stately trees hidden away amongst the clag of undergrowth that now engulfs the course. The house is now a very nice country hotel, with a Bannatyne’s health club built alongside.
The defining feature of the site is its severe topography, arguably too pronounced for a functional, public golf course. The 70’s were not a time of public spending opulence, at least not on golf, so one can reasonably speculate that Mr. Pennink neither had the budget or the equipment to do much about it. It is SO steep that one really couldn’t fix it without getting into the realm of earthworks associated with oriental golf development in the 80’s, when they routinely carved off the top of one mountain to fill the valley to the next one. That was never going to happen in Hastings.
The course was at its peak during the 1980’s, when it was one of the five busiest public courses in the south of England. That was when I first played it. The course I saw in 2017 was a far cry from any heyday. After the Council sold the freehold in the early 1990’s, the course passed through the hands of several operators and when I last saw it, was in the tenure of a local couple, who it would be fair to say, didn’t come up to scratch. With only two, stalwart greenkeepers and the minimum of investment, it looked like a course running down towards closure. The remaining membership was mostly retired and few of them ever set foot on the mountainous back nine. Indeed, I was the only one out there as far as I saw. It is a course with little repute outside of Hastings and probably not much there either. It doesn’t even crack the top 20 courses in Sussex. Play it though and you will never forget it.
Let the story begin....
He had passed this way before. Decades had flown by like leaves on the breeze since the encounter which had scarred him so deeply. Years in which he had moved far away and the lure had weakened. But it never left him and the pull had grown stronger, more insistent. Had grown to become irresistible. Now he was here. Outside. The bright sunlight belied the dark torment within his tortured mind. “Keep driving…just keep driving. In two hours, you’ll be home and you can put this behind you. Forget it ever happened.” But he knew it was too strong. He had to experience the suffering, to remind himself that such distress existed. He turned off the main road and headed into the eerie tunnel of trees, the event horizon crossed. There was no escape now. As the gloom consumed him, so the morbid dread turned to lurid excitement. He no longer controlled his fate. He was within.
It started for me as a child. An innocent. I had an Aunt who lived in nearby Bexhill-on-Sea and when my Grandmother went to stay in her final years, my Mother and I would visit during school holidays. I looked for games of golf to keep me occupied during the days and ventured to the flat seaside track of Cooden Beach and the suburban parkland of Highwoods, but there was one more course to tick off and it was an affordable public course, just north of Hastings, on the road to Battle. It went by the name of Beauport Park.
It was 1984. I was 14 and susceptible. My Mum dropped me off at the back of the unusual white, triangular wedge of the 70’s designed municipal clubhouse, surrounded by an array of low military style outbuildings. It was midweek and so was quiet. I paid my green fee, slung my bag over my shoulder and set off past the driving range to the 1st tee.
The clubhouse looks like it was designed for a game of MonopolyI was from the Pennines and so used to wide open views and stiff breezes. This was very different. This was a woodland course and a mature one at that. Still, nothing to be alarmed by as the opening pair of holes tracked to the north-east, alongside the main road.
The 1st hole tricks you into thinking this is going to be an ordinary course.[/b]The ground swell increased a touch as the layout doubled back towards the clubhouse, with the 3rd hole dominated by a pair of huge conifers in the fairway and the 4th an indistinct short par 3. Then I reached the 5th and the hitherto concealed nature of Beauport Park was revealed. The gently rippling terrain was suddenly replaced by storm-tossed waves of tumultuous peaks and troughs, etched through a narrow, cambered tunnel between dense forest walls. I could feel the swing twitch coming.
The view from the 5th tee. 
From the turn point on 5. The photo doesn't do justice to the sheer slope of the approach fairway.The Today’s Golfer review memorably describes the 5th fairway as ‘sloping viscously’ (sic).
https://www.todaysgolfer.co.uk/courses-and-2-fore-1/united-kingdom/england/south-east/east-sussex/beauport-park-golf-club/If only that were true, because there is not much to stop a sideways running ball from gambolling into the undergrowth. From a downhill lie with the ball far below your feet, you have to somehow get enough loft to fly the ball up nearly vertically to a green in the clouds. It’s a physical manoeuvre worthy of Twister.
Looking back down the 5th.The double valley crossed on the 5th comes back into play on the 8th, only this time it’s been on the protein shakes and is buffed up. It’s the kind of par 4 you see on ‘World’s Freakiest Holes’ calendars. Your drive ‘HAS’ to make it over the first of two deep valleys onto a narrow fairway crest. From there it’s another pole vault of a shot over an even deeper valley to a starkly benched in green with precipitous slopes falling away into gunch all around. Walking to the 9th tee I could see that the adjacent 17th repeated the same landforms as the 8th, but with a narrower fairway and even deeper forest walls to the sides. Something to look forward to….
Looking from the 8th tee. You must get to the top of the hill, or its coming right back down to the bottom.
8th green. By now you're getting the idea.
From behind the 8th. Anything short on the approach is in the bushes.By now, I was starting to fear for my sanity. The 9th offered a modicum of respite once the awkward, severely uphill, cross-camber tee shot was out of the way.
9th Tee: Just a difficult looking hole, full of uncertainty as to how the ball is going to react once over the hill. Best to aim very close to the trees on the right.I was back at the clubhouse and had the option to run away, but I needed to see where this carnival of horrors was going to lead me next. The answer was through the trees to a high tee looking almost vertically downwards to a sharply doglegged, narrow, sloping fairway.
10th tee view: 50% of the greens staff is just visible to the right of shotI would have thought twice about going down there on a pair of skis. I steered a skinny mid-iron through the canopy, roped myself onto my Sherpa and traversed my way down the hill. The second half of the hole was very pretty, with majestic oaks crowding the small green. Like an unexpected lull in a hurricane.
10th hole approach: Probably the most attractive section on the course, with the grand estate trees framing the hole
Looking back down the 10th from the green gives an idea of the very steep fairway slope.Moving on, I came to the 11th and another terrifying hole, this time a steep drop shot par 3. The combination of steep slopes and dense flanking undergrowth was very much affecting my swing now. There was no way I could swing freely and every shot was becoming a lurch towards the ball with a contorted ‘Langer-esque’ follow through, as I mentally tried to steer a course through the narrow passages.
Tee 11: Keep_it_straight!
Green 11: There's not much margin to feed it in from above and it's only too easy to get a kick across into the bushes and nettles.The 12th offered respite from the descent, but made up for it with a mystifying, blind tee shot over a crest to what I presumed (correctly) would be another sphincter-clenching, single file corridor through the woods. I was now far below the clubhouse and mentally preparing for the inevitable climb back up the hill.
The enclosed 12th tee. It's only about 140 yards to the crest of the hill, where the hole turns to the right. A drilled power fade is the shot. Easy!
12th Fairway: It's narrow and there's a stream all down the right, but at least it's flat.
My card from the round in 1984. Something bad must have happened on the 12th! I was already 17-over-par by that point.The long walk to the 13th tee took me even deeper into the forest. I felt a long way from home and was utterly alone. The ascent started with a relatively normal par 4, but this respite was broken immediately with the 14th and the Index 1 hole, a 402-yard Par 4, curving strongly from right to left against a strong camber from left to right. A veritable nightmare for a right-handed slicer. The second half of the hole pointed straight uphill. Words can’t do it justice. My approach shot didn’t quite make it past a false horizon in the fairway and slowly at first, but with gathering pace, came flying back down the hill past me and into the woods. It was mocking me now.
From about 140 yards in front of the 14th tee, you can see how the fairway turns sharply against the camber. The green is further around the corner. The proliferation of trolley tracks in the right rough tells you all you need to know about the most popular side of the hole.The 15th is a lovely downhill par 5, but desperately narrow. Losing altitude was not good news.
15th: Clear out the scrub and you'd have a terrific hole.16 is a gloriously mundane, pretty, uphill par 3 and just what I needed. A blessed pause before the big finish I knew was coming.
Hole 16: A welcome breather.The Par 5 17th is the living incarnate of a demonic possession, sucking up all of Beauport’s fertile malevolence and projectile vomiting it straight into your face. If you have any energy left, you need to reprise the tee shot from the 8th and hit it far enough for the ball to get a grip beyond the steep upslope and give you a chance of seeing where you’re going next. The answer is ‘probably not very far’, as you generally need to lay up before the bottom of what is quaintly known as ‘Heart Attack Hill’. Apparently, there have been two non-fatal coronaries on the lung-busting climb up to the green. They dispense with fairway on the approach. It’s too steep to mow.
Tee 17: We're back to crossing the deep valley we met on the 5th and 8th. Same rules apply.
17: You generally have to try and lay up before the ditch, even though you won't know it's there. I did, by about three feet. You can just see my ball to the left. Very rough ground on the hill up to the green.
17: You get this preview of the hole as you come off the 8th green. Doesn't make it any easier.Finally, I made it towards the house with another steeply climbing hole, with a severe cross camber, this time tumbling away to the left. A slight hook did not bear thinking about. I was certainly not going to go and fetch it.
He slumped to the ground, his body exhausted, seeking final solace in the shelter of the trees on the 18th tee. The cold embrace of eternal darkness beckoned invitingly. Enough about how I felt. Look at the dead rabbit. 
18: Not many clubhouses can double up as a doorstop.I staggered to the summit and the 18th green, like an oxygen deficient mountaineer. I wasn’t just tired, I was traumatised. I had never experienced a golf course as severe as this. It was both terrifying and exhilarating. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse couldn’t have dragged me back out for a second round. Every bone ached and my young golf swing was a tormented, tremoring mess. I didn’t need food or drink. I needed an exorcism.
That should have been that. An experience chalked off. Not to be repeated. My Grandmother died within a couple of years and my Aunt shortly after that. There was no reason to ever go back to Hastings. And yet, it nagged at me. Was it really as severe as I remembered? I’d been young, unprepared and a 24 handicapper. As the years went by, I got better at golf and started to relish the challenge of a tough course. Beauport Park had tortured me and I wanted revenge. By 1997, I was ready to face my demons and be free of the curse. I could handle it this time. Guess what? I was wrong. So very wrong.
This time it was worse. Whereas before I had been overwhelmed, this time I got angry. And the angrier I got, the worse I got. By the 15th hole and the umpteenth lost ball, I snapped completely and my driver winged its way into the undergrowth after the vicious snap hook. I should have left it there. Fishing it out I noticed a prominent kink in the shaft. I never used the club again.
The 15th tee shot: The start...and finish of my javelin throwing career.That REALLY should have been that. It’s a clear sign of insanity to repeat the same action over and over, yet expect a different result. After that second humiliation, I knew Beauport Park had the better of me. I should have waved the white flag and never returned. But golf doesn’t work like that. Over time, I started to convince myself (again) that it can’t have been all that bad and the hills can’t have been all that steep, or the woodlands so claustrophobic, or the clubhouse so like a brutalist Soviet soup kitchen. And so, I started to think once again about satisfying my weird, personal golfing fetish, shared by literally nobody else. I ‘had’ to face the demons of Beauport Park one…more…time.
to be continued....