Hunstanton Golf Club

Hunstanton Golf Club provides some of the best and most challenging golf England has to offer.

Trying to settle on which of Brancaster and Hunstanton you prefer is akin to agonising between a bacon or sausage sandwich.

You’d really rather have both, and no-one will surely come to Norfolk and not play the pair.

They are merely seven miles apart but their attractions are different.

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In response to Royal West Norfolk’s quirky terrain and frenzied nature, Hunstanton can point to a championship pedigree and its subtle routing.

You frequently change direction here, with the first three the closest Hunstanton allows the golfer to get a handle on calculating the breeze. The capricious nature of the wind means sometimes a bogey on the supposedly easy hole feels more satisfying than the birdie on the supposedly tough par 4.

George Fernie and James Braid are responsible for much of ‘Hunston’, as it often known, but Martin Hawtree has over the past few years overseen an extensive programme to maintain and indeed enhance the links’ status.

After the tedious but no-doubt necessary task of filling out insurance forms in the pro shop (to protect against injuring walkers), you eventually peg it up on the 1st.

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The putting green and pro shop are to your right and the clubhouse behind, with the Secretary’s bay window ominously offering a HD view of what the day’s visitors are like.

Already there are too many thoughts swirling round one’s head before the first swing of the day but then we must factor in the wind off the left on the hole that shapes right to left.

What’s more, on the precise line you’d like to start your ball, and where the tee aligns you, sits an enormous, menacing bunker. And this, folks, is a simple 342-yard, par 4 with a stroke index of 15, so there are 14 harder holes out there somewhere…

In fact, nerves calmed, you can make a decent fist of the opening trio before turning round to play the 171-yard 4th into the wind. A long par 4 into the corner follows before again you turn and feel the wind hit your chest on the 6th.

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Suddenly, that 336-yard par 4 you’d been eyeing up doesn’t seem quite so straightforward, especially given its elevated green protected by steep slopes and deep pits.

Then comes the course’s best-known hole, the par-3 7th. Played from a raised – and therefore brutally exposed – tee, you must fly your ball over a deep gully and a cavernous bunker and try to hold the green. Fearfully good fun.

After two par 5s (you guessed it, in different directions), highlights of a fine back nine come early with the classy par-4 11th then the interesting 13th, where you must drive up to the marker post on to a flat shelf then down to a sunken green hidden by rows of mounds.

The downhill, par-3 16th offers an uncluttered view of the North Sea beyond and is surrounded by sand pits. How Bob Taylor aced it on three consecutive days in the Eastern Counties foursomes is anybody’s guess…

The next is a classic, testing par 4 of over 464 yards with a ledge-like green hard against the dune line. Hit it with a wood in your hand and Hunstanton might just shade Brancaster for you…

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