Ashburnham Golf Club ranked in Top 10 in new guide to Britain’s best courses 

By Robert Lloyd

The Ashburnham Championship Links golf course in Pembrey has just been given a Top 10 ranking in a new guide to Britain’s best value courses.

National Club Golfer published its guide to the 100 most affordable courses in Britain.

And The Ashburnham was one of the highest ranked courses in Wales, finishing in sixth position.

“We’ve always known that ‘The Ash’ is great value for money and this guide just reinforces that fact,” said Ashburnham club manager Huw Morgan.

The guide focuses on the Top 100 courses with a green fee under £50.

Mr Morgan said: “The Ashburnham is already universally recognised as an excellent course, playable all the year around.

“But it is also great to get the recognition for being able to deliver value-for-money for golfers.”

Last year, The Ash was featured in the National Club Golfer guide to Britain’s best courses under £80.

“We were ranked No32 in that guide,” said Mr Morgan.

The guide described The Ashburnham as follows –

‘This is a links where the start and end do little justice to what lies between. Ashburnham is consistently excellent from the 3rd to the 15th inclusive . . . the 15th is a brilliant brute at 464 yards.’

Dan Murphy, editor of National Club Golfer, said he wanted the magazine to put together guides which realistically reflected the fact that many golfers played to a budget.

Mr Murphy said the guides were an appraisal of the best Britain has to offer.

He added: “In a bid to capture the spirit of this enterprise, the deliberately intangible criterion was as follows: If you were in charge of taking a group of like-minded golfers away on a trip, are you confident that they would have a memorable day for all the right reasons here?”

The Ashburnham Golf Club will host a number of top events over the coming years –

• 2012 Welsh Ladies’ Open Stroke Play Championships
• 2013 Men’s Welsh Amateur Championships
• 2014 Ladies’ British Open Amateur Stroke Play Championships
• 2015 Men’s Welsh Stroke Play Championships

Club manager Mr Morgan added: “That’s quite a portfolio of events for us at The Ashburnham and we are delighted to be staging them. We can promise a true championship test for each event and the warmest of Welsh welcomes.”

The Ashburnham is the course where the great Welshman and winning Ryder Cup Captain Dai Rees won the PGA title in 1959. It has long been regarded as one of the best links courses in Britain.

The Ashburnham takes its name from the 5th Earl of Ashburnham, who once owned the land and became the club’s inaugural President in 1894.

Two other Ryder Cup Captains have been successful in their playing careers at The Ashburnham in the shape of Bernard Gallacher, who won the Schweppes PGA Championship in 1969, and Sam Torrance, who won the Martini Tournament in 1976.

The Ashburnham has a proud history of hosting many of the major amateur tournaments, having first held a Welsh Amateur Championship in 1904.

Last year, The Ashburnham was the venue for the Men’s Home Internationals.

Pictures attached: The front cover of National Club Golfer and the certificate rating The Ashburnham No6 in Britain’s best 100 courses under £50.

For further information about The Ashburnham Golf Club, contact –

The Clubhouse, Cliffe Terrace, Burry Port, Carmarthenshire, SA16 0HN.  Tel:01554 832269.  Fax:01554 836974. Email:admin@ashgolf.co.uk

Website – http://www.ashburnhamgolfclub.co.uk

Weblink:  http://www.nationalclubgolfer.com/courses/articles/course-news/top-100-under-80-no-4031.html