Going for Golf

Hanbury Manor - a stately experience

Hanbury Manor

Hanbury Manor, a Marriott Hotel & Country Club, just 25 miles north of London, is unsurprisingly the retreat of choice for city types looking for invigoration. After winding your way up the entrance way, you come upon the stunning 19th-century Jacobean country house that forms the hub of operations. Grand is an understatement, and inside the décor is warm and luxuriant, with no expense spared.

The rooms are bespoke, and all boast high-speed internet and flat-screen LCD televisions to keep you connected to the outside world. But in these surrounds, you may very well want to leave it all behind. A luxury spa, fitness centre and award-winning restaurant are among the impressive amenities on offer, along with generous meeting and conference facilities. Let’s just put it this way – there are worse places in the UK to spend a weekend. And far worse places to get married.

With the introductions out of the way, it’s time to move swiftly on and ask the all-important questions. What’s the golf course like? And is it any good?

Hanbury Manor’s PGA Championship course began life as a nine-hole layout designed by the great Harry Vardon in the early 1900s. The six-time Open champion is suitably remembered in the naming of ‘Vardon’s’, a well-appointed 19th offering up hearty fare and the perfect setting to reflect on a round.

Some of Vardon’s original touches remain, but the modern-day 18-hole design was put together by Jack Nicklaus II, son of the Golden Bear himself, and presents a 21st-century challenge set against a timeless backdrop of expansive parkland. At 7,052 yards from the championship tees, the course is long enough to be considered for professional events, and played host to the English Open on the European Tour from 1997-1999. The Women’s European Open also stopped by in 1996.

The pro shop is small and well-stocked, while the impressive locker rooms have the reassuring feel of an established championship venue that knows how to treat visiting players.

The course itself is made up of two contrasting nines. The first is the more open, set upon undulating meadowland, with thick rough lining the fairways. The second is a flatter, tree-lined affair in the shadows of the stately home. There is plenty of water throughout, with 11 of the 18 holes carrying the threat of a ball lost to the ducks. As befits a Nicklaus course, risk and reward is a constant theme, and there is much to contemplate if you want to score well.

Your mental challenge begins at the short, par-four first, where there are three options available from the tee. The safe choice is to pull iron and find the fairway to the right, but this leaves an approach over a deep bunker guarding the green. A bolder move is to go for the fairway to the left, which requires extra length and accuracy, but makes the putting surface far more accessible. If you’re feeling extra confident, and have a cannon drive, then you can always go straight at the flag, requiring a hefty 300-yard carry even from the visitors’ yellow tees.

The Hanbury Manor greens are maintained to USGA specification and play superbly. Despite the saturated English weather, they were quick and true on my winter visit and comparable to any you’ll find in the British Isles. The fairways were also in immaculate shape, and you get the feeling no stone is left unturned by the hard-working greens’ staff who keep the course in tip-top shape. Even the deep bunkers were in pristine condition, and the tee boxes looked to have been pruned by hand.

If the idyllic setting isn’t enough to keep your attention, the tactical battle offered up by Nicklaus II’s design surely will. The par-five ninth is another case in point. Find the slim fairway from the tee and the green could well be in reach. But to reach it you must first clear a group of five hungry bunkers, deliberately stationed to put an element of doubt in your mind. It’s this sense of adventure that perfectly complements the surroundings, and makes Hanbury Manor a course you simply have to tick off your list.