Welshpool: A course that offers everything a golfer could possibly need

Although short by modern-day standards, Welshpool Golf Club more than makes up for its humble length with its challenging nature.

Many golf courses have a hole that deems them challenging; but not Welshpool which has several difficult holes including some particularly tricky par 3s.

But if you like old-fashioned golf with pulpit greens, ditches, greenside swales, the occasion blind shot and gorse lining every fairway then you’re in for a treat.

The 18 holes that make up this magnificent course, once played won’t be forgotten in a hurry. The views are simply spectacular, a panoramic vista of miles of Welsh hillside and farmland with the mountains of Snowdonia as a backdrop.

History

First established in 1894 in Deer Park, Powis Castle, Welshpool Golf Club relocated to Red Bank on the outskirts of the town before finally moving to its current location on the Golfa Hill in 1930.

The construction company of John R Stutt built the course and Stutt compared Welshpool to Gleneagles, despite the latter not providing anything like the spectacular shots with which the Golfa abounds.

Gold writer Bernard Darwin was equally complimentary with his opinion of Welshpool, saying: “The fact is that it is almost as impossible to describe the course as to describe the view; it is so unexpected, so unlike anything else, perched on the roof of the world. It is a beautiful place and I realised how incomplete had been my golfing education until I had seen it“.

What makes it special

Undoubtedly the most special part about Welshpool is the spectacular views across the Shropshire Plain and up into Snowdonia.

Now known as “Darwin’s Dream”, the 12th hole – formerly the 18th – have made past visitors make a return visit to Welshpool – just to play that very hole!