Pennard Golf Club Gower – the links in the sky

Sometimes it’s good to remind ourselves, and our visitors, at Bayview, Oxwich, just how highly Wales rates as a destination for world-class golfing experiences. In 2010 it hosted the Ryder Cup at the Celtic Manor Resort, Newport and in the last four years, has twice hosted the Senior Open Championship at Royal Porthcawl. But there’s more. Wales’ golf clubs figure consistently among the top 100 must-play courses in the British Isles. Set in some of the most awe-inspiring landscapes in the world, it’s not hard to see why.

Golf Travel www.golftravel.com/golf-holidays-inspiration/best-golf-courses-in-wales  recently featured a list of the best golf courses in Wales, where our shorelines are studded with courses designed to test the most seasoned golfer. Many are in south Wales, and include our near-neighbour, Pennard Golf Club www.pennardgolfclub.com situated on a stretch of the south Gower coastline that’s visible from Bayview.

It doesn’t take long to understand why Pennard is known as ‘the links in the sky’. Though its undulating hummocks, dunes and hillocks bear all the hallmarks of a classic coastal course, it is in fact perched 200 feet above sea level, set on limestone cliffs, offering stunning views of Gower’s Three Cliffs Bay.

Pennard’s golf lives up to the setting. Approached via a bleak moor you reach gorse-lined, windswept fairways offering a constantly shifting challenge. The par-four 7th is a particular highlight, demanding a drive between the ruins of a 13th-century church, the remains of a 12th-century castle, and often grazing cattle. You’ll go a long way to beat golf with such a dramatic backdrop.

Measuring under 6,300 yards from the tips, time and again this delightful course provides holes of modest length that confound the thoughtless golfer and reward the skilful one. All this with a history dating back to 1886 and laid out by the five-times Open Champion, James Braid, who stated that he had “never seen a better piece of natural land for the game of golf.”

So why not come and see for yourself what James Braid was talking about. Just a fifteen-minute drive from Pennard Golf Club, Bayview can offer a range of luxury rental accommodation – contemporary cottages, luxury apartments, coastal chalets – for you and your family or golfing party to hunker down in when you’ve finished up on the 18th.

Please contact the Team at Bayview for more details.