Southport & Ainsdale

The outlier of the three adjacent courses running through these magnificent golfing contours across Hillside and up to Birkdale.  Famously home to the Ryder Cup at which they had a five course dinner including sole, tournedos of beef, roast Surrey chicken and finished off with iced peaches Dame Blanche and Dainties, and if that wasn’t enough to give you indigestion there were the normal toasts and four speeches. 

We cut to the chase, set off straightaway and had their marvellous sausage rolls at the halfway house.  A little class was added by the monogrammed paper they were wrapped in but the speeches slipped from my ears in the wind.

A tough course of many parts; a great opening par 3 in front of the clubhouse to a well banked green, a long par 5 to a raised and narrow green and a proper par 4 that gets you into your work.  A succession of par 4s, no two alike heightens the tension on the tee as there are definite ‘A’ routes for the confident driver and the ‘B’ route sets you behind the 8 ball every time.  Heathery in places, tree lined in others, generally flat at the far end it is the start of the links terrain who’s crescendo is at Birkdale.

The second nine also starts with a par 3, and a sausage roll.Did I mention how good the sausage rolls were?My mind might have been wandering back to sausage rolls as I was uninspiring and uninspired by 11 through 15.At 16 you glimpse the Birkdale clubhouse and the interlapping Hillside course across the railway.A goodly par 5 made dramatic by the blind shot over the ridge which is faced by a sleepered bunker.Enough to shred the nerves of mortals.And the 18th unfolds in a gentle dogleg towards the clubhouse and home.I really enjoyed a good test of golf throughout from a slightly stern examiner.