Hayling

Hayling Island's compact geography means that the golf course is never far from the sea. The Solent to the south, Chichester Harbour to the east and the saltmarshes that frame the northern boundary of the links all contribute to a setting of considerable natural beauty, and the course works these surroundings into the round in a way that makes the landscape inseparable from the challenge. Firm turf, close-cropped fairways and greens that rely on accurate pace judgement as much as line produce the conditions in which links golf is most honest and most demanding.

The south coast of England has fewer celebrated links courses than the Lancashire and Kent coastlines, and Hayling's relative obscurity outside the region is something of a puzzle given the quality of what the course offers. It is a genuine links in the full sense of the term: seaside terrain, natural topography, turf shaped by the Solent climate, and a setting that responds to the elements in the way that only a course built on the boundary between land and sea can. For golfers who have played the canonical English links courses of the north-west and Kent but not yet ventured to Hampshire, Hayling is precisely the kind of discovery that rewards a willingness to explore beyond the obvious.

The island itself adds to the occasion. Crossing the bridge from the mainland, the landscape flattens and opens up, the sky broadens, and the quality of the light changes in the way it always does near open water. This sense of arrival, of having reached somewhere distinct and apart from the mainland, gives the round at Hayling a contextual weight that enhances the experience of playing what is, in purely golfing terms, an excellent and challenging course. Visit haylinggolf.co.uk for visitor and membership information.