Review's of Pedham Place Golf Centre
Clubhouse/Hospitality
Quality of Course
Practice Facilities
Value for Money
Held up well
Considering the amount of rain we have had of late, this course was holding up well. It rained for about half of our round, but luckily never heavily. The wind blew pretty much throughout though, and is this courses main defence, as was proved by the 200yd par 3, into a 2+ club wind!!!!! Surprisingly enough, none of us made the green. The greens were good for the time of year, and the 2 bunkers I went in had good amounts of sand. Going back for a society game, and glad I played before, as there are a lot of blind shots, as previously mentioned.
Clubhouse/Hospitality
Quality of Course
Practice Facilities
Value for Money
Vast expanse of rolling Kent farmland creates an interesting inland links type course....
Pedham Place golf course is an unexpetecd discovery. first the location is very easy to get to from the M25 J3, vast car park, very attractive clubbouse mirroring the local Kent oast houses and it is an inland links type course which gives the golfer an ability to score well should the ball remain on the fairways, difficult task with the wind. I shall certainly not venture to play there in the wet/windy wintery day like some other TSGers did!
Lots of doglegs, blind shots, undulations everywhere,so plenty of below/above feet shots, side hill/uphill shots. It is an advantage to know the course, also the course planner is not entirely up to date, no mention of it in the Proshop where the reception is luke warm. No equipment or clothes on sale, only the most basic golf sundries.
An excellent but long walk between the holes, well sign posted, sometimes hard climbs and when you are the top of the hills, the views are quite spectacular. Thames estuary in the distance & Tilburry, I think. I remember a very large poppy field in the distance: stunning! (I think it was from hole 7).
Lots of bunkers with adequate sand, some tricky Par 3 with low stroke indexes. This is one course where the Stroke index is the same for the Red or Yellow irrespective of the Par. Some very long Par 5. Water comes into play at the 18th, a small pond negotiate.
Adequate practice facilities.
Changing rooms upstairs.
Pleasant outside seating area in a sort of a courtyard, that is attractive. Coffee ok, tea much better, lovely Victoria sponge cake which Judy L. could not resist to sample. Very fat chips sampled by Ian M.
An Epping Bandits posting, well attended on a lovely sunny but breezy day, prize money for the highest scores and there were lots of very good scores. Well done to the winners. I did not take many photos and the one I took were a little rush, I may post 1 or 2.
THE END...
Clubhouse/Hospitality
Quality of Course
Practice Facilities
Value for Money
Rolling Landscape, Inland Links
easy to find - so very close to the Motorway. car parking is adequate and just a short stroll gets you into a nice reception area, with a lovely outside seating area. You can bring your bags and soft spikes are OK. Toilets were not signposted but were upstairs.
Practice facilities here are excellent, good driving range with lots of incidental targets, practice greens actually played like those on the course.
The course itself is well presented, some wide expanses of fairways, bordered by punative rough. rather a lot of dog legs and blind holes for my particular liking but this course would benefit from a subsequent visit (once you know where to hit the ball I would assume it gets a little more fun.
Good challenges and although some of the holes were.. 'a bit samey' there was enough diversity to keep the interest. Not a lot of water hazards (but then again there were other hazards to trap the unwary) a course for conservative play and certainly a good thinking course.
After round food was varied and OK, locals were pleasant enough, although I found the reception to be less than welcoming (hey it was a hot day and she might have been a bit stressed).
Take the time to look around, there are some good hilltop views here, but be advised that there are some dramatic elevation changes, pathways are hard and it isn't an easy walking course. There aren't many trees for shade so answer your calls of nature before commencing ...
Worth a repeat visit - pick the day wisely though as I can see this being a slow round if the course is full (lots of time spent looking for errant balls).
There's a Par 3 here as well although we never saw much of that.
