203 - Aldeburgh

Location: Ipswich, England

Rating: 8.1

What a lovely place to play a round of golf! I love the tradition of the course, a very old school clubhouse and gentlemen's locker room and one of two courses I have played to still have ‘long’ socks. They were incredibly welcoming and had cheap pairs they were able to give out in the kitchen so as not to spend an arm and a leg on a more formal option. Everyone was super friendly at the club and very welcoming. I played on a Friday afternoon and the course was filled with a smattering of people and a couple of dogs going on their afternoon walk.

The course starts with a gentle downhill tee shot with a generous fairway but go too offline and you’ll end up in a gorse bush, of which there are a smattering throughout the 18 holes.

Holes 2 and 3 work back on themselves and are actually going to be replaced once the club has finished it’s project of two new holes which are currently being developed up near the 7th green. The 4th is a really really cool par 3, an uphill tee shot with a huge bunker surrounding the bottom of the green and the face of which was a series of wooden slats tilting towards the green. A really cool feature that was present elsewhere on the course with two more just before the 11th green.

The front 9 offers more changes in elevation and the back 9 more twists and turns and raised greens. It was an awesome course, thoroughly enjoyed playing here. The conditioning was very good for a relatively dry period in the summer and the greens were fantastic as well. My only downside with the club was the lack of a proper driving range, the practice facilities were limited to a chipping/putting green.

It is a decent course to play and especially given some of the courses around Amsterdam can get very busy we managed to play a full 18 in the evening hours without much delay at all. The course was also in relatively good condition, has a lovely clubhouse on the inside although strange looking on the exterior and has some good practice facilities in terms of a driving range and chipping/putting greens.