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View
up the 1st Hole
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Kington Golf Club
Bradnor Hill,
Kington,
Herefordshire,
England.
HR5 3RE
Tel: +44 (0)1544 230340
Web: www.kingtongolf.co.uk
Email: golf@kington.kc3.co.uk
You could be forgiven, upon initial inspection of the
card, if you thought Kington a relatively easy course.
At just 5766 yards and with only one par four of over
400 yards, you could be forgiven for wondering what
all the fuss was about. At well over 1000 feet above
sea level Kington stands a proud old lady, created by
the same hands that built Carnoustie and Gleneagles,
she casts her shadow over seven counties. Kington is
the highest course in England. It feels like the top
of the world, some say it is the top of the world and
when the wind blows you had better look for something
to hold on to!
There is no sand on the course, (it all got blown away)
but each green is surrounded by humps and hollows that
can make the shot following any approach that is slightly
wayward as treacherous as anything you will ever come
up against from a bunker. Being carved from the side
of a mountain, as she is, a flat lie, even on the fairways,
is a rarity. Few tees' are on the same level as their
greens, and it's easy to walk off the 18th thinking
it was the only hole that played downhill. Marker posts
are your target from many of the tees' and you constantly
hear the sound of the bells' ringing around the course,
letting groups behind know it's safe to play.
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A
typical view across the course
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Expect to use every club in your bag
before the days out. Each hole presents a new challenge
vastly different from the one before. The first, at
just 308 yards to the middle of the green, is the perfect
example. Two good shots and two putts will get you a
par four, but make the slightest error and you can probably
double that. Steeply uphill all the way, with a huge
crevice that devours anything pulled from the tee, you
need an accurate drive to leave yourself an approach
of about 100 yards, which again will have to be on target
for the penalties for missing the green are severe.
Miss it on the left, even by only a few feet, and you
ball can roll down the hill 40 or 50 feet leaving an
impossibly difficult, blind shot to the narrowest part
of the green. Miss it to the right or long and the bracken
and thick bushes will engulf your ball, often never
to be seen again. Upon reaching the long narrow green,
you might just get down in two putts, you may even walk
off with a par four, but be in no doubt, you will be
shaken and you still have a long way to go.
All in all Kington is an experience you will long remember.
Look around you at any time and you will believe you
can see forever. Be amazed at how in just a few moments
a cloudless sky can turn grey and you are suddenly caught
in a rainstorm, then watch it disappear across the hills
as quickly as it arrived. But marvel most of all at
the wind, the undying, unrelenting wind that leaves
you, if not with the lowest scorecard of your life,
with a feeling of being truly alive.
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