Thorpeness Golf Club

Thorpeness is located approx 2 miles from the Suffolk coast. The course is relatively easy to find (from the A12) and is located at the end of a private road. There is plenty of parking onsite (including an overflow car park). The course is associated with the house in the sky which can be seen from the clubhouse and from the 18th hole.

Practice facilities are located behind the car park and include a chipping green, 2 driving nets and a driving range (bring your own balls), the putting green is located in front of the Pro-Shop. The staff were friendly upon arrival and the bar area and food looked OK from what I could see (I did not eat here).

James Braid designed the first 10 holes in 1922, and the other 8 holes were added the following year. The course has 12 par 4's (7 of which are near or over 400yds), 4 par 3's and 2 Par 5's (there are 6 Par 5's for the ladies).

There course is relatively open with it's main protection coming from the weather, bushes, heather and heavy bunkering. The greens were very good and ran true, there were few greens with undulations and the pace of the greens could have been slightly quicker. The t boxes were in reasonable condition, and some of the bunkers were a bit scruffy.

To score well round here you need to keep it in the fairway, the first cut of rough was OK, however most fairways have dense bushes either side of the fairway and heather on some holes; this course eats balls from errant shots (most people lost several balls the day I played). The wind was prevalent on most holes, which made playing some of the longer par 4's challenging, however with the wind behind and baked out fairways some of the shorter par 4's are drivable (if you are a long hitter), providing you can avoid the bunkers.

The course is meant to be ranked as no.83 in the top 100 golf courses in England, I'm not sure I would rate this as a top 100 course. I paid £40 on a Saturday for an afternoon T time, which is I think is reasonable value, however I don't think I would pay £60 before 12 to play the course at the weekend.

If you are up this way it's worth a look, but remember to bring some spare balls as you will probably need them...