Ashdown simply one of the best

Indispuitably, Royal Ashdown stands high among the top 50 in the country. Having said that, golfers in Sussex who aspire to play all the best courses and have the game to do it, are lucky to be near such a wide and varied choice. Many counties offer only mundane fare by comparison.

Royal Ashdown is remarkable insofar that its golf has been played on common land since formation in 1888. The Conservators of the forest have never permitted the building of bunkers, but there is no need. The heather, gorse, streams, trees, ferns and undulating character of the terrain provide enough hazards without sand being added. Nearby Piltdown share Ashdown's distinction in having no sand traps on the Common.

Nature's blueprint is the true test, and if it should be your misfortune not to have played the Old course, lose no time in repairing the omission. It is an experience not to be easily forgotten. The card from the whites says it is 6,477 yards and par 72. That is all very well. Par is not, like time, the ancient enemy. Every hole clings to a secret that must be unravelled with a cunning eye and sure hand on the club be it a driver or mid-iron, wedge or putter.

Should the completely up to date golfer seek greater distance with the very latest weapon it will not be of any use unless the ball is directed clear of all Ashdown's traps. A perfectly level lie is a rarity. Here one must be able to play with one leg higher than the other or the ball above the feet and vice-versa. Bernard Darwin once likened the lumps and bumps short and left of the 12th green to a cemetery for old ladies' pet dogs. Indeed, the Old has been the graveyard of many a promising card but when a good score is obtained how much greater the exhilaration and the satisfaction of saying in later years to admiring kith and kin... "I did that at Ashdown."

There are two 18-hole courses at Forest Row, the Old and the Ashdown Forest Golf Hotel West course which is the home of the Anderida GC. Anderida is the ancient name for Ashdown Forest and both courses offer the sort of golf our forefathers played in the late 19th century.

Fittingly there is a clubhouse of distinction in honest brick and timber from the forest which has been the home of the Old course members since 1893. In those days the club was the Ashdown Forest and Tunbridge Wells GC. It was in May of that year that Queen Victoria reviewed her troops on the forest and the army commander, the Duke of Cambridge, in full regalia of a Field Marshal, drove a ball from the first tee.

Thereafter Ashdown became Royal and among its members were some of the greatest amateurs in the land while the artisan Cantelupe spawned players of equal quality, among them Alf Padgham who went on to become the 1936 Open champion and, of course Hector, his nephew, who was professional at the club for over 40 years. Hector held the course record with 62 for quite some time before changes were made to the layout.

The story of Ashdown is just as much about people as the course itself. Golfing dynasties grew up; the Mitchells, the Padghams, the Seymours, the Heasmans and the legendary, long-hitting champion of England, Jack Smith. Once, Smith put a drive clean over the clubhouse into the car park from the 18th tee for a bet. He lived in a cottage by the 16th and was one of the many Cantalupe characters born on the forest who also died there.

First impression of the Old is the need to obtain a good height from the tee. The carries are important. Clear the trouble and, surprisingly, the fairways are wider than they look. Some of the holes are famous in their own right. The 128-yd sixth, or Island Hole, is surrounded on three sides by a stream. Should a tee shot, not hit perfectly, still find the long green, there is every chance that it will roll off one of the shaved shoulders and into the clear gurgling water or hang suspended on the tufty bank.

The hole was endowed many years ago with £5 with compound interest in perpetuity for anyone holing in one in a competition. There haven't been too many takers. This is no gimmick or trick hole. The Island is a genuine test of accuracy with what might be a pitching club one day and a mid-range iron the next.

I cannot think of a softish hole unless it is the 18th where, unless the drive is good, a par doesn't come automatically. The remaining tests can strike fear into a less than resolute heart. One of the hardest pars, and quite the most spectacular, is a regulation three, the 11th. This is 249 yards over a great dip and usually against the wind. Ignore the yardage because sometimes it looks twice as far. Even with the heaviest artillery it is beyond the reach in one shot of most golfers who will just have done battle with an uphill par five and the bruises on the card to show for it.

The ability to drive long and straight and hit big fairway woods and irons make the Old a true tiger's test. The fifth, for instance, is 515 yards and downhill, offering the chance of a birdie in fast running conditions. But just under 20 yards from the green is a meandering stream and very many approach shots end there. The eighth, also par five, is just as hard to hit for the punchbowl green looks so tiny from a distance.

None of these holes held any fears for the great Bobby Locke who, as an amateur before World War Two, won the famous Winkley Smith Trophy with a 36-hole aggregate of 140. His name, alongside those of Freddie Tait, Harry Colt and Horace Hutchinson may be found on the many honours boards which read like a page from the history of golf.

Royal Ashdown has moved with the times. The 500 or so members are drawn from all age divisions who jealously preserve the customs and traditions of this very special club.