Great Courses To Play In The County Where Double Major Champion Sandy Lyle Honed His Game

Glancing at my ‘courses played’ spreadsheet ahead of an autumn trip to the county with colleague, Rob Smith, I was surprised to see I’d already played 11 of the best golf courses in Shropshire.

Among those previously played were the two 18-holes courses at Hawkstone Park, where Sandy Lyle famously honed his major-winning game under the guidance of the club pro, his late father, Alex Lyle. Things were a little different in Sandy’s day, with the Championship course not opening until 1995, but the two layouts there now provide wonderfully contrasting tests.

The Hawkstone course is the one that plays up to and around the extraordinary cliffs of the Hawkstone Park Follies, while the Championship course is more of an American-style layout with water aplenty. It is relatively rare to find two such contrasting, but enjoyable, courses at the same resort within these shores.

But I still had Shropshire gaps to fill, and on this latest trip we filled them with The Astbury, Ludlow and Bridgnorth. First stop was Ludlow on a sunny afternoon. The club moved to a James Braid creation on free-draining sand and gravel inside the racecourse in 1927, one of several UK courses set inside or close to racecourses.

I’ve always feared such layouts will be flat and featureless with the racecourse infrastructure too obtrusive, but those concerns proved unfounded, as Ludlow does a fine job of sustaining visual interest and variety throughout, with the racecourse adding to, rather than detracting from, the experience.

You start out with the grandstands to your right on the 1^st and 2^nd, before turning left for the 3^rd and 4^th, the latter a par 3 identical in length to the 13^th (off the yellows) just to its left at 151 yards. The 4th features a bathtub hollow short of the green so make sure you take enough club, while the 13^th plays blind.