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Nearby Courses
The east of England is a region that too many of us drive through without pausing to stop. Perhaps we are heading north on the A1 to Scotland, or more likely south towards London. Those who do take a diversion invariably head for the North Norfolk coast and the delights of Hunstanton and Brancaster – and all power to them.
But if you do not quite have the time to get that far off the beaten track, or you just want to discover somewhere new, then you will be interested to learn that you could be playing a course as delightful as King’s Lynn within 25 miles or so of leaving the A1 at Peterborough.
To judge by the pictures you could be tackling one of the Surrey heathlands, or a century-old club somewhere in the Home Counties. In fact, this is a course less than 40 years old, though the history of the club goes back rather longer.
The club dates back to the 1920s but only moved to the present site in 1975, with Dave Thomas and Peter Alliss the designers. The course is now found a couple of miles to the north of King’s Lynn itself on the road that heads towards Hunstanton and then follows the coast round to Brancaster and Sheringham.
King’s Lynn is one of those clubs where you know as soon you arrive that you are going to enjoy yourself. You might reasonably expect to find a parkland course in a place like this but in fact this is a fast-running woodland layout with patches of heather and no shortage of doglegs. As you wander around the clubhouse to survey the scene a look down the 18th fairway will tell you exactly what to expect.
The key to success – and it is easier said than done – is to hit your tee shots not only straight but also the right length, otherwise you will spend much of the day attempting ambitious recovery shots before eventually accepting the necessity of a chip back out to the fairways.
Frequently, and obviously depending on the tees of the day, the driver (and sometimes also the 3 wood) is best left in the bag because this is not an especially long course and it is much more important to be able to have a clear shot to the greens.
Most of the par 4s measure between 350 and 400 yards, and with the fairways firm at the time of our visit we had more trouble running through fairways than we did reaching the angle of the doglegs.
From the very beginning, you can see that positioning your tee shots is all-important. Take the 2nd, which looks promising on the scorecard at little over 300 yards, but where you must hit the fairway, while the 3rd and 4th dogleg in opposite directions and must be treated with respect.
The front nine concludes with a par 5 that is so straight it looks narrower than it is, seemingly no more than a corridor if your driver is not behaving itself.
Then come two fantastic holes, one a five and the other the longest four on the course. Get through these, and a short hole that can call for as much as a wood, and you can pick up a couple of shots on the way in.
In certain places, there are shades of Woburn and West Hill about King’s Lynn, though elsewhere it is rather more homely than that. You are unlikely to score well here on your first visit, but then again it will give you the perfect excuse to come back and have another go.
But if you do not quite have the time to get that far off the beaten track, or you just want to discover somewhere new, then you will be interested to learn that you could be playing a course as delightful as King’s Lynn within 25 miles or so of leaving the A1 at Peterborough.
To judge by the pictures you could be tackling one of the Surrey heathlands, or a century-old club somewhere in the Home Counties. In fact, this is a course less than 40 years old, though the history of the club goes back rather longer.
The club dates back to the 1920s but only moved to the present site in 1975, with Dave Thomas and Peter Alliss the designers. The course is now found a couple of miles to the north of King’s Lynn itself on the road that heads towards Hunstanton and then follows the coast round to Brancaster and Sheringham.
King’s Lynn is one of those clubs where you know as soon you arrive that you are going to enjoy yourself. You might reasonably expect to find a parkland course in a place like this but in fact this is a fast-running woodland layout with patches of heather and no shortage of doglegs. As you wander around the clubhouse to survey the scene a look down the 18th fairway will tell you exactly what to expect.
The key to success – and it is easier said than done – is to hit your tee shots not only straight but also the right length, otherwise you will spend much of the day attempting ambitious recovery shots before eventually accepting the necessity of a chip back out to the fairways.
You might reasonably expect to find a parkland course in a place like this but in fact this is a fast-running woodland layout with patches of heather and no shortage of doglegs.
Frequently, and obviously depending on the tees of the day, the driver (and sometimes also the 3 wood) is best left in the bag because this is not an especially long course and it is much more important to be able to have a clear shot to the greens.
Most of the par 4s measure between 350 and 400 yards, and with the fairways firm at the time of our visit we had more trouble running through fairways than we did reaching the angle of the doglegs.
From the very beginning, you can see that positioning your tee shots is all-important. Take the 2nd, which looks promising on the scorecard at little over 300 yards, but where you must hit the fairway, while the 3rd and 4th dogleg in opposite directions and must be treated with respect.
The front nine concludes with a par 5 that is so straight it looks narrower than it is, seemingly no more than a corridor if your driver is not behaving itself.
Then come two fantastic holes, one a five and the other the longest four on the course. Get through these, and a short hole that can call for as much as a wood, and you can pick up a couple of shots on the way in.
In certain places, there are shades of Woburn and West Hill about King’s Lynn, though elsewhere it is rather more homely than that. You are unlikely to score well here on your first visit, but then again it will give you the perfect excuse to come back and have another go.