Golf in and around Skegness in Lincolnshire

Mention Skegness and you’ll always get some sort of reaction, whether a wry smile about this good old-fashioned British seaside resort, a mention of Butlin’s or a reference to the famous early-20^th-century ‘Skegness is so bracing’ GNR railway posters.

But for golfers, just a few miles south of town lies the top seaside offering in any ‘best courses in Lincolnshire‘ ranking. Seacroft, a thoroughly deserving mainstay of our Next 100 courses list, plays over a sometimes slender links strip down to Gibraltar Point Nature Reserve, though the sea is rarely visible.

The 2nd hole’s narrow tiered green must be hard to find in any sort of crosswind, and I was humiliated by the steep drop-off right of the 3^rd green that sits atop one of the dune ridges that frame many holes here.

Only a long accurate drive will open up the green tucked away to the right on the long 7^th, while from the 8^th tee there really doesn’t seem to be much fairway at all to aim at between the dune ridge on the left and the road down to Gibraltar Point on the right. Slicers must dread this hole in a left-to-right wind!

The run for home
You turn for home via the par-3 10^th with its surprisingly long pulpit green, before a stretch that will prove testing all the way home if the wind is the wrong way, much as at Royal Cinque Ports in Kent. On the plus side, a number of back-nine fairways are gently valleyed to coax slightly wayward shots back into play.

The 13^th is a cracker, playing from a slightly elevated tee down and over a dune ridge, before turning right and playing back up to a green perched on that ridge.