Stay the night on site if you can; it increases the fun

Even if Dracula is in the next room

By this time of year many northern hemisphere golfers are already thinking about next year’s treats. Properly planned, these will include both old favourites and new destinations, preferably spread across at least three continents north and south of the equator.

Obviously the quality of the courses is far and away the most important criterion in choosing which ones to play. But there are secondary considerations as well and one of these is the availability of on site accommodation. Rest assured that each of the courses mentioned below are worth visiting for the quality of the golf experience alone. Any judgments passed relate solely to off course facilities.

My aim is just to ice the cake a little by describing places where your bedroom is no more than a cart ride away from the eighteenth green or, better still, within walking distance of it. That usually makes you feel completely relaxed from the moment you arrive, however unfamiliar the surroundings may be. It also helps when there’s a language barrier, as happens occasionally in China.

The best results are achieved if the rooms are comfortable and the location far removed from public highways. In addition it’s nice if the only buildings you can see are directly connected with golf. Sand Hills, about which I wrote recently, is the best example of this I have found anywhere in the world so far. But don’t worry. The search for absolute perfection will continue.

Anyway, having trekked to a remote corner of Nebraska, a long journey even by American standards, it made sense to explore the neighbourhood. Sixty five miles northwest of Sand Hills there is further alluring golf terrain. Bordering on the visually spectacular Snake River Canyon is CapRock Ranch, an impressive new Gil Hanse design which opened in 2021. Right next door to this is the Prairie Club so the accommodation at Cap Rock is convenient for playing both courses.

It actually has a slightly ranch like feel so the atmosphere in the dining room doesn’t quite have the intimacy of Sand Hills. Still it’s practical and very friendly. The bedrooms are simply furnished spacious individual suites. Their only shortcoming, if the friend who stayed in the one next door to me for two nights is to be believed, is inadequate sound proofing. As he correctly identified my eccentric juxtaposition of Albinoni and Adele late one evening I fear his complaint may have had substance.

Almost two thousand miles east of Cap Rock is Pine Valley. I have long thought that it has a strong claim to be golf’s supreme paradise. Here it’s easy to suspend reality for a day or two and shut yourself off completely from the outside world. The occasional distant rumble of a passing train simply reminds guests how lucky they are to be at golf’s own Mecca.

The on site accommodation here is varied and includes en-suite individual bedrooms in a lodge only a very short walk from the clubhouse. Some of these have a view of the par three fifth, a hole that can be daunting at first sight. Depending on how you played it, this may or may not be a welcome reminder of your round as you prepare for bed.

Alternatively, if you fancy a moonlit cart drive back from the clubhouse after dinner, there are a variety of four bedroom homes. I stayed in one of these, complete with its own private floodlit putting green, on my first visit when my host was Sir Ronnie Hampel. His thoughtful attention to detail, which served him so well when he was one of Britain’s top industrialists, was soon apparent.

Despite being a teetotaler himself he noticed that my fellow guests and I were partial to a vodka martini before dinner. Our collective thirst was such that by day three supplies of this tipple were exhausted. A phone call from Ronnie to the clubhouse secured instant replenishment of the drinks cupboard.

Bandon Dunes is a totally different model, a resort and not a single course at a private club. It’s grown significantly since I was last there just over a decade ago. Even back then Mike Keiser’s inspired vision of making it possible for every reasonable golfer to have access to top quality courses was clearly already bearing fruit. Key to this success has been his shrewd choice of golf architects.

It’s all on a huge scale. The eye-filling width of the Oregon coastline and its Pacific Ocean horizons have a grandeur of their own whose musical equivalent is Beethoven’s powerful and deeply emotional fifth piano concerto. Interestingly here, and at the other places mentioned, it’s after dark when the benefit of staying on site really makes a difference. There’s something uniquely moving about seeing a course you’ve just played and anticipate playing again next day in the stillness and darkness of the night

The accommodation at Myopia Hunt Club in South Hamilton Massachusetts, founded in 1882, is about as far removed from Bandon Dunes, or indeed any of the other places mentioned so far, as it possibly could be. That’s hardly surprising in the light of David Normoyle’s perceptive comment about the pretty clapboarded clubhouse “I don’t know if it was built before the Revolutionary War or not but it sure feels like it.”

It’s beyond doubt the only club I know where the main bedroom is a beautifully furnished spacious suite overlooking the eighteenth green and containing a magnificent four poster bed. The clubhouse was originally constructed in the eighteenth century as a residence and its charming panelled rooms and leather furniture still make it feel more like a family home than a club.

This is reinforced by the fact that you appear to be able to help yourself to drinks in many rooms. On neither of my two stays have staff been in evidence after dinner which was served in the conservatory as the sun set. Nor is there much risk of a crowd late in the evening since, as far as I can remember (my last visit was in 2011) there’s only one other bedroom.

Another benefit of staying on site is the opportunity to see how courses are prepared. Few early morning sights are more reassuring to the early riser than that of greens being hand mown at first light. I am particularly fond of a white-panelled cream-painted suite with a wooden floor and a four-bladed fan overhead. From one window the first fairway is visible. From another you see the eighteenth green and beyond it some New England style homes, nestling beside the blue water of Buzzards Bay.

This gem is at The Kittansett Club which hosted the 1953 Walker Cup. Given the passion of many of its members for that very event I earnestly hope it returns there soon. The course nestles at the end of a quiet tree-lined road that winds its way south to the tip of Butler Point. Another attraction of the suite mentioned is that it’s located on the first floor and reached by only one flight of stairs. Such is the generosity of the hospitality of Kittansett’s members I wouldn’t want undertake a longer climb after dinner.

When I first thought it might be fun to review the accommodation at a few clubs, I intended to compare the differences in how this is provided on both sides of the pond. Unfortunately I’m now close to my word limit and haven’t even finished with American venues. Before ending, however, I must return briefly to my side of the pond.

For many years my favourite Scottish clubhouse bedrooms were the six on the first floor at Muirfield. The three at the front were particularly coveted because their windows commanded a view of the whole course. Pulling back the curtains early on a sunny morning and savouring the 36 holes of alternate shot foursomes to follow was one golf’s best moments.

By chance when I first became a regular guest of the Honourable Company over thirty years ago my two closest friends were both bachelors. The result was that in August each year we would stay two or three nights in these rooms, often preceded by lengthy late night conversations in the small private sitting room downstairs. Next morning a magnificent breakfast would be served in this room occasionally accompanied by a bottle of something chilled and sparking to drink, a custom of which my two friends were particularly fond.

This happy sequence of stays only came to an end with the passing of the gentlemen concerned not long before Covid struck. Around the same time the alterations to the clubhouse involved the removal of these bedrooms. As they are now to be filled by a separate dormy house the days of staying in the clubhouse itself are now sadly over and one experience will not be repeated.

This was an evening when there was only one other person staying, the late Christopher Lee. That night I woke twice dreaming that he might feel an urge to practice a scene from his next Dracula film. It was the only time I locked my door.

ENDS