XXXII: Royal St George's
Striking the ideal balance in a layout is in truth, an unattainable directive. What the travelling golfer in search of the game’s purest and most unique experiences deems to be the ultimate concoction of lively quirk and test of golf may be closer to a tricked-up field of gimmicks in the mind of a touring professional, junking up their battle with old man par. From the best course on the planet to the worst venue on the Open rota, there are few courses which have a more diverse spread of opinion than Royal St George’s, a fact which can be attributed to the dynamic randomness of its land combined with its old school lineage of eccentric architectural features.
As more and more courses are softened and gentrified, the list of courses which make golfers truly feel something condenses, this makes a course which delights and infuriates two different schools of golfers all the more worth seeing.
Royal St George's iconic starter hut
Utterly spellbinding, to start with anything other than Royal St George’s canvas would be negligence. Loud and abrasive, the land at Royal St George’s rollicks violently with heaving dunes and wild undulations stamping its authority on each and every hole. The land dances with diversity and imagination– ridges, bumps, hollows, plateaus and spines present the natural variety and unpredictability of golf which thrills. Its this constant variation in contour and overbearing dunescape which characterises and defines the layout, giving rise to its most iconic features, famous holes and infamous emotional rollercoaster.
Rollicking, rumbling and loud, the land at RSG is provocative
On countless occasions the rumpled fairway contours muddle up landing areas giving players the option to lay short or take a gamble on the bounce – the rub of the green spirit of golf thrives at Sandwich, where the ball stays alive much longer than most. Royal St George’s land movement scarcely halts as fairways merge into greens, as Sandwich’s singular, original green complexes burst with character, wild undulations and lay of the land rumples which feed balls to flags and kick them away just as quickly, their complexities one of links golfs’ rarest commodities.
There is an enormous scale to Royal St George’s, each hole an immersive experience in its own right, where its sprawling boundaries allow ample space for one of the game’s most interesting routings. Contrary to the majority of traditional out and back links, the routing zig zags around the property and with no two holes running parallel, has golfers chopping and changing directions constantly. Golfers rarely feel balanced at Royal St George’s and when the wind inevitably blows off the sea, the whirlwind routing is further jumbled, another layer of judgement required.
The puzzling view from the 4th tee
By Royal St George’s standards, the first three holes bumble along keenly, softly introducing the rolling terrain, the centre-line bunkers obstructing the approach into the first and the punchbowl third green the features of note. Reaching the fourth tee, the volume is so obviously turned up, launching into a trio of Sandwich’s most provocative and inspiring golf. Two partially blind shots up and over dunes define the fourth and fifth holes, a hallmark of an old-school links.
The fourth is one of links golf’s finest holes, with the perfect tee ball covering a 20-foot-tall bunker carved into the side of a dune. Beyond the sandhill, the land rumbles and swings to a boisterous picked up green – one of the loop’s most elusive targets.
The perfect view to the flag from the right side of the 5th
With the fourth bemusing from the tee, golfers are left in a daze standing over the approach into the fifth green. In a test of mettle and commitment to a line, any tee shot slightly left of the fairway’s amphitheater is left with a blind approach to a green tucked into a gap between two towering dunes. Throughout the round, blindness is frequent with five tee shots to obscured fairways and any number of approaches to invisible putting surfaces, depending on the golfer’s angle of approach.
The short par 3 ‘Maiden’, with its double-tiered amphitheater green tucked amongst a sea of dunes and surrounded by sand, makes a perfect let-up from the chaos.
The famous one-shot 6th 'Maiden'
One of the design traits which makes Royal St George’s so special is the diverse methods of tackling the dunes – an eclectic mix of playing over the top of them, threading between them and elevating tees, but the 10th is the primary example of playing up to their peaks.
From the tee, the tenth is deceptively straightforward, playing dead straight to a dune-top skyline green, however a simple drive and pitch becomes endlessly complex and nervy when the tee shot is slightly left or right of centre, the angle narrowing and the possibility of the ball returning to your feet lingering.
The skyline green of the 10th
The 12th and 13th make a magnificent pair, not least due to them running at polar angles. The 12th flag dances at a 45 degree angle to the tee, cut off by a sea of fescue, one of the most aggressively rumpled fairways you will come across and a sea of bunkers, the temptation to bite-off too much of the right side lurks.
With a row of pot bunkers hugging the edge of the left-angled fairway, the 13th is the test-case for why tree-less doglegs are some of golf’s most compelling holes. There is a flexibility, freedom and risk-reward aspect to each of these tee shots, where the ability to work the ball both ways is rewarded.
The tumbling terrain of the 12th
Of all the courses on the planet, Royal St Georges asks as many compelling and confounding questions as any. One of golf’s most interesting routings on a parcel of land so wide-ranging and extreme, boasting 18 singular greens which ooze intrigue, there’s little wonder that centuries on, amateur golfers remain besotted and professionals frustrated. The variety of shots it demands is second to none, doing so without a set in stone solution, where creativity and optionality remains at its core. To play Sandwich regularly and attempt to unpack its joys and secrets must be one of the most fulfilling opportunities in the game.
One of the game's most thrilling rides
So often there are clear lines of distinction drawn between fun and championship golf, a thorough test of execution pushed to the forefront at the expense of the form of the game which inspires. Of all the Open Championship venues, Sandwich boasts a character and intrigue matched only by the Old Course at St Andrews. Perfectly straddling the tightrope of the joyful eccentricities of an old school links and a championship layout which still befuddles the world’s best 130 years on from its inaugural hosting of The Open, Royal St George’s is endlessly complex and mind-bendingly fun – sandy proof of a course’s ability to have a foot in both camps.
There are few places I would rather find myself than the first tee at Sandwich.