Tenby

There is a particular satisfaction in playing a course that has been here from the beginning, and at Tenby, founded in 1888 as the oldest golf club in Wales, that sense of historical continuity is palpable from the moment you arrive. The clifftop setting is immediately striking: the course occupies a promontory above the town with the sea visible on multiple sides and the Pembrokeshire coastline unfolding in both directions. This is links golf in a landscape of exceptional natural beauty, and the combination of golfing challenge and scenic reward places Tenby firmly among the most satisfying courses in Wales.

The course itself is a genuine links, with the firm, close-cropped turf and natural undulations that distinguish this style of golf from its parkland counterpart. The clifftop elevation means that the wind is rarely absent, and its direction largely determines the character of any given round: a benign westerly that assists the outward half can become a stern headwind on the way home, transforming a comfortable scorecard into something more testing. Several holes run along the clifftop edge, where the views across Carmarthen Bay provide a distraction that requires some discipline to resist.

Tenby sits naturally alongside Pennard and Royal St David's as one of the three most significant links experiences in Wales, and its historical status as the country's oldest golf club adds a dimension that purely golfing considerations cannot capture. The town below, with its medieval walls, three beaches, and robust independent food scene, makes Tenby one of the most complete golf destinations in Wales, a place where the round is the centrepiece of a longer, more varied visit.