Perranporth reminded me what makes a great golf club

The rugged, blasted majesty of Cornwall’s north coast feels like a distant prospect until the foot of England begins to narrow and suddenly, humdrum farmland gives way to the wild, white-tipped boundary between ocean, land and sky.

I love the West Country, more deeply the further west I go. I also love links golf. My home course is Royal North Devon. Untamed, ancient and eccentric, it’s a club with a peculiar warmth; a quality, I believe, that marks out a great club from a merely good one. Not least when that warmth is extended to visitors.

Seventy miles down the peninsula from Westward Ho!, towards the toe of our islands, is the first indication that we are close to a place that embraces a similar philosophy. Cresting Budnic Hill, a sign on a bend proclaims ‘Everyone Welcome’ in big bold letters. Below it is the crest of Perranporth GC.

Less than a minute later, a second sign offers another welcome as you turn right into the car park. It’s nice to feel good about a place before you even arrive.

In many ways, Tony Pope is the embodiment of this ethos. A proud Cornishman and retired tin miner, ‘Popey’, as he’s known, is a past club captain and member of more than 40 years standing.

“I tried to join several other clubs but when you’re a working boy from a council estate in Camborne, there’s a snob value,” he says. “This place didn’t have [that]. It’s a working man’s club and I was made to feel very welcome.”

Beyond the big windows of the clubhouse bar, the landscape tumbles away to the vivid slash of Perran Sands Beach below. “I love the course,” Tony says. “I never, ever get tired of it.”

Perranporth Golf Club is perched on a shoulder above the town, its glorious beach and the breakers unfolding into Ligger Bay. This is linksland on steroids and yet we seem to be too high above sea level for such a crazy dunescape.

That’s because Perranporth’s extraordinary craters, hollows, ledges, turrets, natural obstacles and hazards are the legacy of Tony Pope’s ancestors, generations of men who trudged up the hill from the town or from neighbouring villages before descending into the bowels of the earth to mine tin from below Reen Sands.

When the mining died out here in the 1830s, nature took hold of the mine dump and spoils, slowly transforming it into a golfing gift horse, a playground of jagged contours and man made dunes.

As the popularity of the game in England exploded, Reen Sands was inevitably identified as an ideal location for a golf course. In 1926 a syndicate of businessmen bought the land, a committee was formed and a noted local amateur by the name of Mr T Knowles was asked to offer up his recommendations.

Not surprisingly, Mr Knowles was extremely enthusiastic about what he saw. “In many cases excellent natural sites for the greens exist and the amount of actual construction work should not be considerable,” he noted in his report.

Knowles pegged an 18-hole routing but advised that James Braid should be sought to approve his design. Two weeks later, Braid arrived in Perranporth, made a few suggestions and confirmed that Knowles had done a “splendid job.”

He really had.

**A look at the extraordinary landscape that makes Perranporth what it is | Source: Supplied**

A remarkable links course designed to be embraced

Rounding the corner of the clubhouse, two things become immediately apparent. The first is that this is exceptional golfing terrain. The second is that the wind will be a constant presence on our journey across it. When we played it was blowing a hoolie; a genuine three to four-club howler.

The opener, played as the 10th before the nines were reversed, might be one of Perranporth’s least memorable holes and it’s still brilliant.

A downhill par-4 of just 377 yards from the yellow tees, it could be anything from a 3-wood to a 6-iron. The fairway falls away sharply to the left and, in the distance, is a green on a shelf cut into a dune. Today, the only way to access and hold it is from the left. There’s no shot from the right, which is exactly where I leave it.

The 2nd, where exciting new tees are under construction, is a fabulous par-5 that plays uphill into a valley between the dunes before turning left towards an infinity green. Into the wind it’s three proper blows and a prayer; downwind, a totally different puzzle.

The 3rd dives down into a fairway and calls for distance and accuracy from the tee to set up an uphill approach to a green on a ledge. It’s 350 yards off the yellows, which calls for a full-blooded driver and 4-iron to get home. In very different conditions, I’m sure Perranporth’s biggest hitters will have driven the green, which serves up more jaw-dropping views.

The 4th is an exhilarating long par-3 that plays blind into a punch-bowl green with certain death awaiting anything left or long. My partner’s Whoop band is telling him that we’re doing the equivalent of a 10km training run in this wind, and yet we cannot stop smiling as each tee and fairway presents a series of thrilling new questions.

It’s hard to pick out a favourite but there is a stretch along the highest ground on the second nine that delivers a first-time experience guaranteed to result in a return visit. The par-5 11th comes first, doglegging right and playing up to a mighty turret of a green. The 12th and 13th are both short par-4s that require you to hit blind into valleys that reveal stunning vistas into wonderfully quirky greens. Fun doesn’t even come close to describing it.

There will be those who don’t get Perranporth. They’ll complain about the number of blind shots, and there are a lot, and point to its lack of length. Such arguments miss the point. If you give yourself and your game over to this rip-roaring landscape, with its collection of brilliantly quirky short par-4s, three fiendish short holes and three attackable par-5s, I cannot see how you can fail to love it.

Tony Pope insists he doesn’t have a favourite hole but it’s a question he often asks visitors when he’s out on the course as volunteer ranger: “I love to hear what people think of the course,” he says.

He spent most of his working life underground. “I just found my niche,” he says. “The camaraderie was second to none.” He loves Perranporth Golf Club for similar reasons.

Tony also loves sitting on the 5th tee and looking south beyond the Cow and Calf rock stack to St Ives. “You’ve got Cape Cornwall and The Brisons and the views towards the Isles of Scilly; West Cornwall and Carbis Bay,” he says of his beautiful part of the world, “but this place is hard to beat.”

**The Cornish coastline next to Perranporth | Source: Supplied**

In addition to its jaw-dropping views and wonderful collection of holes, Perranporth is moving forwards while remaining true to its roots.

“I travelled all round the world and you should always be proud of your roots,” Tony agrees. “I’m Cornish and I’m proud to be Cornish.” He’s also proud of his club. “It’s my club. It’s our club,” he says. “It’s a members’ club.”

One with a gem of a links course and warm welcome guaranteed.

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