Going for Golf

£20m secures bright future for St Mellion

St Mellion International Resort

Top tournaments have been a feature at St Mellion since it first opened its fairways in 1976. The PGA Cup, a prestigious biennial match between the very best club pros on either side of the Atlantic and run along broadly similar lines to the Ryder Cup, was the first big golf event to be held there in 1978.

Over the next 10 years, the original course at St Mellion hosted a number of quality events, including the Benson and Hedges International Open, the British Ladies’ Open Championship and the Tournament Players’ Championship (twice). When the Nicklaus course opened in 1988, it stole much of the limelight from its neighbour, which is a shame because what became known as the Old Course remained a great challenge and enormously popular with the members.

Now, thanks to a comprehensive £20m facelift at the resort, the Old Course, which is about to be re-christened the Kernow (Cornish for Cornwall), will finally emerge from the shadows and should receive more of the recognition it richly deserves.
The extensive refurbishment has dramatically altered a number of holes and rendered the course significantly more challenging.

“It’s been comprehensively modernised and is now a golf course we can be proud of,” said director of golf David Moon, who has been at St Mellion for over 15 years. “It’s also the perfect complement to the Nicklaus course.”

Cornwall is rich in folklore and the tale told of how the Nicklaus course came into being might be just another myth. However, it’s good enough to warrant repeating. After finishing 57th at the inaugural Benson and Hedges International at St Mellion in 1979, Seve Ballesteros, despite having pocketed the princely prize of £210, was critical of the course.

Stung by his comments, the then owners, Martin and Hermon Bond, commissioned the great Jack Nicklaus to produce a masterpiece that no one would have the temerity to criticise.
Although the rugged terrain surrounding the Old Course was near-perfect land with which to work and rich in raw features, especially water, the Golden Bear surpassed himself with a design that was, quite simply, dazzling.

The opening drive is a blind shot and only when you reach the brow of the hill and feast your eyes on what is before you, do you begin to appreciate the thrill that lies ahead.

With towering trees, steep valley sides or the familiar Nicklaus mounds surrounding you as you wind your way along valley floors, up gorse-covered hills, around countless lakes and ponds, past waterfalls and alongside murmuring streams, you can both literally and metaphorically lose yourself in the breathtaking beauty of it all. And just when you are convinced that the last hole you played must surely be the best, another of at least equal beauty unfolds in front of you.

But there’s a lot more than mere beauty to this course as it is every bit as tough as it is attractive. With comparatively small greens and tight fairways, it certainly can’t be overpowered. But it is fair, giving you more room off the tee on the long par-fours than, for example, on the par-fives, where you might have to exercise a modicum of restraint.

The very obvious imperative is to keep away from the thick rough. Even if you find your ball in it, the chances are you’ll be hitting from a perilous lie. The mounds, banks and hillocks are best left to the spectators for which they were primarily intended as this is, very obviously, a stadium course. And nowhere is this more apparent than coming up the last.

With the handsome new 80-bedroom hotel on your left and the green alongside yet another lake in front of a grassy amphitheatre, you can almost hear the roar that will reverberate in a couple of years time when the English Open finally arrives at its new home.

The Nicklaus course was clearly more to Ballesteros’s liking as he won here in 1994 to join a distinguished list of stars that includes Bernhard Langer, José Marie Olazábal and Paul Casey.

With both courses now in great shape, the future is surely bright for the Crown Golf-owned resort. As well as golf and a new clubhouse, there are three swimming pools, fully-equipped gymnasium, spa, exercise studio, tennis and squash courts, snooker tables and even a bowling green. The new 80-bedroom hotel has just opened and complements the accommodation already on offer in the 30 lodges and three cottages. And there will be another 265 houses available when the villages are complete.

A great resort with first-class facilities and a wide choice of activities, it deserves to do well.