gw_nov_preview

COURSES
TOP 100
RANK 73
GB&I
TOP 100 SPOTLIGHT
Royal St David’s
It may lack the drama of some of our other seaside stars, but Chris
Bertram says you are unwise to underestimate this Welsh links.
LEFT AND BELOW: The Snowdonia mountain range
and Harlech Castle afford dramatic backdrops as you
navigate the links of Royal St David’s.
There are distinct phases to a visit
to Royal St David’s. The initial
experience is laced with intrigue
and anticipation, emotions borne from
a memorable arrival in the town of
Harlech. Once on the links, your
sentiments are more prosaic, cultivated
by the challenge of a course touted as the
world’s toughest par 69. It may feel a tired
description, but it is founded in accuracy.
It’s almost as if St David’s seduces you
into relaxed complacency, only to bloody
your nose and make off with your wallet.
By reading this article you now have no
excuse for being hijacked by her; yet first
glimpse of this delicious linksland will
still likely encourage some to fancy their
chances with this relatively short exam.
Most of Harlech is wedged seemingly
precariously into a steep hillside
overlooking the Gwynedd coastline and
it is into this lofty location that you enter
the town within Snowdonia National
Park, picking your way along the kind of
twisting coast road you only ever seem to
travel along when homing in on a worldclass
links. It is from here that you first
catch a glance of the course, eliciting
teenage-like excitement at glimpses
between gaps in the hillside houses of the
stellar linksland way down below.
There then becomes an impatient
urgency to your journey as you weave
down the narrow lanes – including
Ffordd Pen Llech, the UK’s steepest
public road (40 per cent gradient) – that
is akin to a descent in the Alps.
If you can avert your eyes from the
ribbons of sandy turf between pyramid
dunes you will likely notice Harlech
Castle. It is an imposing sight, dating
back to 1283 and was once captured by
Welsh revolutionary Owain Glyndwr
before being regained by the army of
Henry Tudor. Its bloody history only
adds to the romance of the setting.
Hunched down atop a spur of rock,
the castle’s towering location is at once
intimidating and puzzling, given it is half
a mile from the sea. In fact, when it was
built the Irish Sea lapped its foundations
and it is due to changes in geology that it
now finds itself inland.
On land left behind by the retreating
sea sits the links of Royal St David’s.
Your journey here – the glimpses of the
November 2015 Golf World 95