Hollinwell Golf Club #16

Some courses win you over with conditioning; others sweep you into a story you can feel in your bones. Hollinwell did both, even on a day when the fairways wore a hard summer. From the moment our minibus turned off the main road and drifted down that long drive toward a clubhouse perched like a watchful sentinel, the silence drew us in. It wasn’t empty; it was calm. Members and staff met us with warmth, a blazer-clad gentleman shook hands and shared lore, and the pro offered to help us frame shots for photos rather than police our cameras. That tone mattered. It made a top-100 venue feel like a welcoming home rather than a museum. And when a club’s first impression is generosity, it primes you to notice the best version of the place: the forested corridors, the amphitheatre greens, the light catching on water where you least expect it. Even before the first tee shot, the setting had nudged us into the right headspace.

That headspace made the “bowl” narrative click. The course pinches and releases sightlines as if the land itself is curating your round. You pass from lofty tees into enclosed valleys, then climb out to broader vistas, never quite losing the sense that you’re being guided. The routing respects elevation—par-fives that tempt, par-threes that terrify gently, and par-fours that demand shape without punishing honesty. It’s not punitive golf; it’s focused golf. Hit it straight and you’re rewarded. Miss, and you often find it, recover, and still feel part of the story. Risk–reward defines the character: drivable par-fours if you fancy it, or sensible layups that leave engaging approaches to greens wrapped in heathered shoulders and framed by trees. It’s the kind of architecture that favours repeat play; every decision feels new the second time, because angle, wind, and nerve re-write the script.

Fairways told a different story: a summer of drought had left them patched and wiry. The club called preferred lies, a pragmatic choice on a sand and sandstone base that sheds moisture quickly. Some will say a £200 green fee deserves smoother turf. That’s fair. But what we saw was a course doing honest work to protect its surfaces through a harsh season—striping, prep, and communication that helped us play decent golf while still letting the land breathe. If you judge a course only by sheen, you’ll miss its soul; yet conditioning matters, and we won’t pretend it doesn’t. The question becomes whether the routing, strategy, welcome, and visual theatre outweigh the scuffs. For us, they did. We’ve played immaculate places that felt forgettable. Hollinwell felt unforgettable even when the grass wasn’t at its best, which says something about design and setting that no sprinkler can buy.

The highlights stack up. The second hole flips the switch after a plain opener: a generous landing that folds into a gentle dogleg, with Robin Hood’s Seat shouldering the horizon. The third, a long par-five, draws a bead back toward the clubhouse and forces a line through heather if you get greedy. The eleventh sneaks through a snaking valley where placement beats power, evoking Hindhead’s drama without the cruelty. And then the 13–18 run—the kind of stretch that cements a club’s legend—feels like the course opening a private theatre for you. The par-three 13th drops from a high tee into a natural bowl that gathers breath and silence; we watched a baby-fade tee shot chase the flag and stop a heartbeat short of an ace, and the place almost cheered in whispers. Sixteen teases with a drive that can bite off a corner and vault bunkers to a raised green; prudence has its day, but ambition gets the spotlight. Seventeen widens, then narrows into an amphitheatre green as if to pause and draw breath before the final act. And eighteen—downhill, framed by water left and bunkers right, the clubhouse filling your eyes—asks for one last committed swing. It’s a longest-drive arena that doubles as a memory machine; you see the ball for ages, you see the shot you wanted, and you see the round you’ve just had, all at once.

Culture underpins the experience. The pro’s openness to content, the staff’s kindness, the quiet confidence of a club that doesn’t need to be busy to feel alive—these threads knit together. It helps newcomers relax about dress codes and decorum, and it invites societies to belong for a day rather than pass through. Our group dynamic amplified everything: banter on the bus, a shared awe at glass-sheathed views over the 18th green, and a running debate about whether a mild first hole should matter when the rest sings. We logged scores, ran side bets, celebrated a near-ace, and still found space to stand still and listen to wind moving through trees. That duality—play and pause—defines great golf days. It’s why we’d return when the fairways heal, happily paying again to test a routing that keeps offering choices.