Antrobus Golf Club

challenging course for players who struggle with their line. Thought required off a lot of tees about ball placement. If you play the five par 3s well then you have done well. This course is well worth a visit

Played here in a Society event on 10 June 2008. Club is easily accessible from the motorway network and on arrival we tucked into bacon butties and a cuppa before playing a 9 hole team event. The practice putting green is a joke - 3 holes on a bit of spare land between the clubhouse and the 1st tee. After putting a few balls on a seeded, bumpy and patchy surface a partner said "I hope the real greens are nothing like this". Oh-oh.
The course has lots of hazards - water, dry and wet ditches some of which take you completely by surprise, lots of OOB and some very penal rough if you stray far enough off the fairways. The biggest complaint we had was the state of the greens - they were dreadful, lumpy, bumpy some fast some slow. Not one green had a true run on it and it became discouraging to see good work to get on the green ruined by such poor putting surfaces.
The course itself presents a reasonable challenge. It's an easy walk but with some distance between green and next tee on certain holes. The wind was blowing the day we played which made for a tougher test. We all lost numerous balls due to the playing conditions, OOB and particularly the hazards which to my mind detract more than add to the course's set-up. I accept most of these are an integral part of the course and are there to test your course management and punish recklessness but after a while you're spending more time thinking about what shot to take to avoid the hazard rather than making a score.
Anyway, back to the clubhouse for sandwiches before the afternoon single's event for which having already played the first 9 and knowing where the trouble was scoring was a little easier. The 5th is a long par 5 with OOB to the right. The guy who owns this field must make a fortune selling balls he's found in there. Whilst looking for either of the two balls he'd put in there one of my playing partners found 8 balls on the boundary line buried in deep rough - and not one of them was his!!
I'd say the 8th is the signature hole - a short par 3 all over water which takes some carry to a narrow green. The other par 3s are pretty straightforward and there are a decent mix of long/short par 4s. Nothing about the course really gets your pulses racing though. The 16th, the last of the par 5s, is a nice hole but the 17th and 18th are a strange combination of finishing holes which for me didn't end the round on a high.
I couldn't believe in this day and age that there were no towels provided in the locker rooms which meant I for one couldn't shower before dinner. Dinner itself was ok. Some of us thought the clubhouse resembled an American diner. Concensus was we wouldn't return.

I recently joined this club - I find the course very challenging as there is lots of trouble for the unwary. You have to think about the water, ditches, out of bounds etc on most holes and not just aim down the middle. Often there is a way of playing a hole by taking less club that you might otherwise do to take the trouble out of play for a subsequent shot. The greens have improved tremendously and are quite tricky with some very tough pin positions for the competitions - the middle of the green is sometimes a very bad place to be if it leaves a downhill put across a slope. There have been a number of improvements recently to the drainage which has resolved most of the problems there used to be with damp spots on the fairways, and those problem areas which remain are to be addressed this year. This will be a fantastic course in a few years time when the new trees grow a few feet more.