[Mark Chaplin]

The three decommissioned 318ft cooling towers and single 416ft chimney at Richborough Power Station were demolished on Sunday. The aiming point on several holes at Deal, Sandwich and Princes will now be much harder to work out. I'm told the noise was pretty loud at Deal and the ground shook despite the 5 mile plus distance.

http://www.kentnews.co.uk/news/video_watch_richborough_towers_demolition_1_1234082

[Scott Warren]

I heard they were coming down. Sad day! Giving a first-time visitor to Deal the line off the tee on 5, 6 and 7 will be much tougher now.

[Dónal Ó Ceallaigh]

I heard they were coming down. Sad day! Giving a first-time visitor to Deal the line off the tee on 5, 6 and 7 will be much tougher now.

The work of Melvyn 

[Scott Warren]

I don't think so, Donal. Their demolition was planned more than two weeks in advance!

[Dónal Ó Ceallaigh]

I don't think so, Donal. Their demolition was planned more than two weeks in advance!

 

[Mark Woodger]

a shame those have gone. i will have no idea where to aim when i am at Deal on the 22nd.

back to pure guesswork like the rest of my game.

I hope the club resist the urge to put something on the course in their place.

[Bob_Huntley]

Mark,

Have the Radar Towers at RAF Rye been demolished; I haven't been there since 1950.

Bob

[Michael Watts]

Good riddance!  They were a horrible eyesore.  There's a reason nobody ever wrote poetic lines about the sun shining majestically off the concrete cooling towers.

[Tony_Muldoon]

Good riddance!  They were a horrible eyesore.  There's a reason nobody ever wrote poetic lines about the sun shining majestically off the concrete cooling towers.

I'm not sure about that, how about this opening stanza? Personally speaking I think it's his mature masterpiece.



So. Farewell then cool,
 cool, cooling tower.
No Sun ever warmed
thy pristine flesh.


Not in this cold,
cold philistine land where
we decry the terrible
beauty of modernity.


Keith’s Mum asks
why
we ever needed to cool:
something
in this bitter tundra.

E Jarvis Thribb

[Bill_McBride]

Mark,

Have the Radar Towers at RAF Rye been demolished; I haven't been there since 1950.

Bob

Bob, I've been to Rye twice in the past few years (wonderful place) and can remember no towers visible from the course.

[Dave Herrick]

I have to disagree with Brian as to the value of the Dunbar industrial plant (cement?). Irrespective of the quality of the golf architecture, to me the magic of the course is in the timelessness of the setting once one ventures through the gap in the stone wall after the first few holes. There is nothing but the tall stone wall on one side and the shoreline on the other, that is until the cement plant appears near the turn. To me it is nothing but an eyesore, and as I recall it does not serve even as a helpful aiming point.
On the other hand I've played the course only a couple of times; I might be wrong.

[Mark Pearce]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmUvVOSe3Ho

Video footage of the demolition...

I was sad to hear of the news. There is something distinctive and even attractive about them - British Links courses are often surrounded by unsightly caravan parks, ugly modern architecture and all of the rest of it. Whilst I don't want to see any of that sort of stuff at, say, a serene Heathland course, there's something about links courses being connected with the towns they neighbour that is pretty cool. Another, similar example is that steel mine (I think it's a steel mine) as a backdrop to one of the holes on the front nine of Dunbar - it really is striking!

You'd love Seaton Carew, then!

[Tiger_Bernhardt]

I for one and glad to see the towers gone.

[John Mayhugh]

Mark,

Have the Radar Towers at RAF Rye been demolished; I haven't been there since 1950.

Bob

Bob, I've been to Rye twice in the past few years (wonderful place) and can remember no towers visible from the course.

I didn't remember seeing them either and they aren't in any of my pics.  From what I've read about those sorts of towers, they would be hard to miss.

Bob, I imagine not a whole lot else has changed at Rye since you were last there!


I didn't mind the cooling towers, but it's easy to see how some people considered them an eyesore.

[Mark Chaplin]

http://www.webbaviation.co.uk/gallery/v/sussex/rye/rye-chainhome-radar-aa15057b.jpg.html

Bob the above link shows a photo of the site of RAF Rye.

Strangely the towers were not IMO eyesores as they had some architectural merit unlike the awful Pfizer site which dominates Sandwich. Caravan sites are a part of the British links scene as many courses have a park in view.

[Jaeger Kovich]

I played RCPGC yesterday and was looking for them... that explains why I couldn't see anything even before the fog rolled in!

[Jon Wiggett]

http://www.webbaviation.co.uk/gallery/v/sussex/rye/rye-chainhome-radar-aa15057b.jpg.html

 Caravan sites are a part of the British links scene as many courses have a park in view.

Mark,

I always thought that a caravan site was one of the requirements for a links course

Jon

[Mark Chaplin]

Jon you are quite right some get pretty upfront and personal with the course such as Hunstanton around the 5th green and at the back of the 10th (?) at Royal Troon.

[Ben Stephens]

Jon you are quite right some get pretty upfront and personal with the course such as Hunstanton around the 5th green and at the back of the 10th (?) at Royal Troon.

Chappers,

The caravans are just visible from the 5th green at Hunstanton - you are more likely to get a prime view inside a caravan from the 6th tee 

Cheers
Ben

[Jon Wiggett]

Mark,

not sure if it is 10 or not at RT but it is a very good hole so that might have distracted me Funnily enough, Golspie, which has just broken into the top 100 on a certain website has a caravan park which occupies some great links land and forces the course inland.

Jon

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