Cornwall’s Top Ten Golf Clubs, Historic Road, Top Hotel, & Native Food
When people conjure up images of England’s most southwesterly county of Cornwall, they often think about the area’s rugged, cove-filled coastlines, its beautiful beaches, the many quaint seaside villages, the BBC-TV shows Poldark and Doc Martin, which are filmed in Cornwall, and this area’s famous foods such as Cornish clotted cream, Cornish pasties and freshly caught seafood, which is hauled in from the nearby Atlantic Ocean.
In addition to being one of Great Britain’s more popular vacation destinations, Cornwall is home to a number of first-class golf courses – both links and parkland courses. The first golf course in the county was opened in 1889. It’s the West Cornwall Golf Club in Lelant, located in western Cornwall. Today, the Cornwall Golf Union boasts more than 30 golf courses that range, geographically, from the Cape Cornwall Golf Club in the far western part of Cornwall to the Bude & North Cornwall Golf Club in the northeast section of the county, not far from the Cornwall-Devon county line.
To that end, it’s clear that the Cornish have some great places to ‘pepper the pins’ in pursuit of eagles, birdies, and pars. While Scotland, Ireland, Northern Ireland, England’s county of Kent, and England’s county of Lancashire are popular golfing ‘hot-spots’ in Great Britain and Ireland, England’s county of Cornwall provides golfers with everything they want and need in a golfing getaway, especially in the spring, summer, and fall.
In the recently completed booklet, Golf in Cornwall: England’s Best Kept Secret, golf writer Mike May provides a short description of the top-ten golf designs in England’s county of Cornwall. The booklet is posted on EnglandGolfer.com. Here is the link: https://englandgolfer.com/articles/golf.cornwell.golf.guide.pdf
Those ten layouts — not in any specific ranking — are listed below:
1.) St. Enodoc Golf Club (in Rock)
2.) West Cornwall Golf Club (in Lelant)
3.) Perranporth Golf Club (in Perranporth)
4.) Trevose Golf & Country Club (in Padstow)
5.) Bude & North Cornwall Golf Club (in Bude)
6.) Mullion Golf Club (in Mullion)
7.) Bowood Park Hotel & Golf Club (in Camelford)
8.) Launceston Golf Club (in Launceston)
9.) St. Mellion International Golf Club (in St. Mellion)
10) Lanhydrock Hotel & Golf Club (in Bodmin)
There is a strong element of ‘star power’ affiliated with some of those afore-mentioned courses, as a few well-known golf course architects and players have designed some of these layouts. For instance, five-time (British) Open champion James Braid designed St. Enodoc Golf Club and the Perranporth Golf Club. St. Enodoc is ranked as the 99th best golf course in the world, according to Golf Digest. The West Cornwall Golf Club, Cornwall’s oldest course, is the home course of four-time major champion ‘Long’ Jim Barnes. Legendary golf course architect Harry Colt was responsible for creating Trevose Golf & Country Club. And, the Nicklaus Course at the St. Mellion International Golf Club was designed by the great Jack Nicklaus.
In addition to a description of each course, this booklet contains a number of images from these layouts that are built on a variety of landscapes that range from seaside links layouts to the parkland courses which give wonderful views of the Cornish countryside. Each editorial vignette contains the website, physical address, and telephone number for each golf club on the top-ten list.
In addition to the information about the top ten golf clubs in Cornwall, this publication contains sections on the eight great fish & chip shops in Cornwall; one of Cornwall’s finest hotels (the Budock Vean Hotel, near Falmouth); one of its historic roads (the A39), and a recipe for the world famous Cornish pasty.
In an effort to publicize this booklet, May will be sharing its existence via social media and will be making appearances as a guest speaker at public gatherings (such as Rotary Club meetings) around the U.S. throughout 2020 and 2021.
Some of Cornwall’s other sight-seeing ‘hot-spots’ include Land’s End, Lanyon Quoit, St. Michael’s Mount, Minack Open Air Theatre, Trelissick Garden, Tintagel Castle, Truro Cathedral, Eden Project, and the world-famous Jamaica Inn, the focal point of a 1936 novel (Jamaica Inn) by author Daphne du Maurier. For walking and outdoor enthusiasts, Cornwall also has miles and miles of seaside walking opportunities — the South West Coast (walking) Path.
This is the fourth golf short-story/booklet by May. His other three were A Pint and a Pork Pie: The ’83 Open Championship (a 22-page document, written in 1983, following his visit to the 1983 Open Championship at England’s Royal Birkdale Golf Club, in July 1983); England’s Atlantic Links: An Irresistible Golf Destination (a 40-page publication, written in 2017, following his visit to England’s Atlantic Links in June 2017; http://bit.ly/37vKCTA); and The Top 10 of Hoosier Golf: Ten of Central & Southern Indiana’s Top Public Golf Destinations (a 29-page booklet on the top ten public-access golf courses in central and southern Indiana; https://indianagolf.com/golfsouthernindiana.pdf). Currently, he is working on The Pete Dye Golf Trail: Back Home in Indiana and Golf in Kent: The Crown Jewel of English Golf. May visited England’s county of Kent in June 2018.
May, a member of the Golf Writers Association of America, is a correspondent for Golf Central Magazine, Ohio Golf Journal, GoGolfandTravel.com, Midwest Golfing Magazine, GolfTrips.com, GolfDaily.com, Golf Oklahoma, and Tri-State Golfer Magazine.
