Review's of Mardyke Valley Golf Club
Clubhouse/Hospitality
Quality of Course
Practice Facilities
Value for Money
Enjoyable Challenging course
Mardyke Valley GC is a par 70 parkland course in South Ockendon, Essex.
From the visitors yellow tees the SSS is 3 shots less than par at 66 whereas is was SSS70 from the white tees, about a 500 yards difference.
The pluses for the course are that there is a wonderful array of challenging holes, the greens and bunkers were in excellent condition. The 4th, 6th, 8th, 9th, 12th, and 18th are challenging holes and the 15th, 16th and 17th especially so.
A negative about the course is that that some of the hole indexes are not relating to difficulty. A criticism I also hold about my home club Cherry Lodge.
The most disappointing thing about the course is that the fairways had not been cut to the point that at times it was impossible to differentiate between fairways and the light rough. This must be policy as there were an adequate number of maintenance staff out on the course doing anything but mowing duties.
I've played it several times but not when its been in its best condition.
The golf only green fee was £15, excellent vfm.
Catering was good in terms of quality and vfm.
Clubhouse/Hospitality
Quality of Course
Practice Facilities
Value for Money
Far from straightforward, needs TLC
Mardyke is a fraction over 5,700 yards off the yellows with two par 5's and four par 3's. Just a couple of the 4's are over 400 yards so plenty of shortish par 4's too.
There were three things that stood out for me. Firstly, most of the greens have plenty of natural contours and borrows left in them and plenty of fairways are also sloping - this isn't necessarily a bad thing and can add more character than where the designers simply flatten everything.
Secondly, there are a large number of holes where the layout is far from 'normal' and the holes have been fitted to the land available - this can also be a good thing, somewhere like Pedham comes to mind with it's sometimes quirky holes - but somehow, at least for me, it doesn't really work at Mardyke. Perhaps there are simply too many of them, or the holes themselves are simply not attractive enough to get away with the unusual (cheap?) design.
The third thing to stand out, and sadly I feel the one that detracts greatly from the other two, is the condition of the course. I can't recall the last time I saw greens with so many un-repaired pitch marks on them. If the greens were largely flat this would be a shame, but where the greens are already fairly tough, putting becomes a real lottery.
For me the greatest example of a hole that simply doesn't work is the 17th, but the 16th and first are equally peculiar - where are you supposed to land the ball on a 414-yard par 4 with a line of trees left and right encroaching on the fairway at 270 yards? Don't get me started on putting the pin on 17 on the lower tier sloping back toward the water....
There's a simple driving range a short trek through the fields away, with buckets of ropey balls available in the pro shop. The range works well as I've never seen anyone else use it so hitting off of grass- not flat, but that should prepare you for your round - is possible, though there are some oldish looking mats too. There's a decent putting area with space to chip from too, in front of the modern, small (but fine) clubhouse.
If the condition of the greens and fairways was improved, the quirkiness of the layout would at least be tolerable. I'm not sure condition alone would be enough to ever make this an appealing course, I think a bit of earth-moving might be needed too.
