Course
Tenby’s classic links course beguiles visitors with its mellow undulating greens and awesome sea views. You’re never far away from a dazzling vista of the sea, and at the high point of the course on the 17th hole you can catch a sublime glimpse of the coastal waters and Caldey Island beyond.
We’re proud of the fact that we generally play 365 days a year without pause – due to the way the sandy terrain drains and absorbs rainwater. Our buzz words are ”when it rains it drains!”. This means the course doesn’t turn into bog land in poor weather and is usually accessible by electric buggy.
Tenby is not in the style of a manicured parkland course. When you tee off here you sometimes have to factor the natural terrain into your game. Playing here is often described as golf at its most natural, with rolling fairways, rising dunes, and now and then the occasional tricky pot bunker and blind shot. This doesn’t mean it’s a rough course; the greens are consistently in immaculate condition and run fast and true. It is in fact a course that caters for both novice and veteran.
The lie of the course developed naturally in parallel with the dunes and wild grasses surrounding the greens, but it took the influence of the pioneering designer James Braid to help shape the route into its current character as a “classic links course”.
The greens and fairways here are always fast and consistent, but Tenby has its quirks as a course, ensuring that you must play a canny game to avoid being caught out by the hazards of the rough. Tenby is always a highly rewarding course, but many of the holes require a deft touch when teeing off. As one perceptive golfing journalist has put it, “at Tenby a little restraint goes a long way”.
It was probably the courses’ idiosyncrasies that so appealed to the celebrated Welsh Ryder Cup player, Dai Rees, whose affection for Tenby was such that the third hole ended up being named after him.
Some golfers who return to Tenby after playing over more sedate courses in the cities or suburbs find that they’ve missed out on the sheer unpredictability of the links here. Another element to consider in your approach is the wind. Although the south-westerlies don’t maraud in as hard as on the Atlantic coast to the west, the wind is still going to be a strong factor here – especially if you’re teeing off directly into it. That said, you tend to get more shelter from the elements after you get past the early holes.
For some players unaccustomed to its ways and whims, Tenby can appear to be a “tough” course, but the truth is it just takes time to understand the shape of the land – a bit like getting acquainted with the detailed landscape of your back garden!
The total length of the course is 6,613 yards.
18 Hole Championship Links Course, running alongside Tenby South Beach, a testing course with stunning views