Southerndown

Southerndown is a hidden gem, unique in offering part sandy links and part acid-heathland, and due to its terrain it is one of the driest courses to be found throughout the land.

It is the nearest championship links-style course to the Celtic Manor resort. Founded in 1905, it has a wealth of tradition. Southerndown is a true test of golf, don’t expect target golf here. This is a course where you have to manage your game through the natural contours and firm greens, around the gorse and bracken and pot bunkers – and then there is the wind off the sea! This is golf as it should be.

Southerndown is unique.  Nature has crafted an unusual ‘limestone-heath’ on which golf is played. The massive limestone outcrop, which rises over 70 metres from the sea and gives such superb views, accounts for the course’s free drainage; the overlying soil supports acid-loving heathland vegetation such as heather, bracken and gorse; and the westerly winds have deposited centuries of sand to give the front eight holes a springy, links-style character.

This ‘limestone-heathland-links’ presented the original course architects with a unique tableau on which to work.  Willie Fernie, Herbert Fowler, Willie Park, Harry Colt and Donald Steel – some great names in golf course design – have all played their part over the years in creating Southerndown as we know it today.