Only one third of all people who play golf in Britain are members of a club.
So where do the majority get their golfing fix? This month PAUL CHAPPLE visited one of Cheshire's lesser-known pay and play clubs, Knights Grange, Winsford, in the first of a series of public course reviews.
by Paul Chapple, Golfers' Chronicle
DRIVING through a densely residential area of Winsford I knew I was within half a mile of Knights Grange Golf Course but surely it couldn't be situated round here? Then suddenly I spotted a little green oasis and I was about to be pleasantly surprised by what I found.
The course is owned by Vale Royal Borough Council and also includes other sporting facilities such as football pitches, tennis courts and a 400m running track...but it was the 18-hole golf course I was here play.
As an added bonus I was fortunate enough to be paired with the grounds maintenance supervisor David Fisher, from Crewe. David, a former assistant greenkeeper at Portal Premier Golf Club, Tarporley, was a keen golfer himself and definitely a man in the know.
The 5,270-yardage is a little misleading. To me it suggested a rather short challenge but with seven par threes it soon became clear that the remaining 11 holes weren't necessarily lacking length. In fact they weren't really lacking anything.
To say I was surprised by the quality of the course would be an understatement. Until five years ago the course offered just nine holes. Now with an modern second nine holes added there's a real distinctive two halves which adds character and makes for an interesting test.
One recent visitor to the club commented that he had played a rather more, shall we say, 'exclusive' course the week before at £40 a round yet the greens were not even close to the quality of these!
And he wasn't telling fibs. In fact the high standard of the greens is probably the course's biggest asset. David explained that they had been hollow cored earlier in the year and were now tended to every day with new, sophisticated machines, the result....quick and true surfaces.
The course starts and ends with tricky par-threes and the 16 holes in between certainly tested my very average golfing skills. Having started with three pars (thanks to one putting all three greens) I thought I'd got the measure of the place. But I'd not bargained for the really good stretch of testing holes I was about to surrender to.
The fourth, a par-four of 461 yards caught me out. A pond 100 yards from the tee and then a ditch 250 yards away make it an awkward driving hole and I was lucky to get away with a bogey five as, yet again, I one-putted on a small green that was protected on the right by more water.
My favourite hole was probably the dogleg seventh. The tee shot needs to be spot on to have any chance of reaching the green in regulation.
