West Wales golf courses: highlights gallery

There’s something for everyone when it comes to West Wales golf courses, from clifftop, hilltop or parkland layouts to links courses both old and new

Neath

This wonderful James Braid course perched high above the valley floors offers some wonderful panoramas and stirring holes, like the 15^th that takes you from the upper level to the lower level in one fell swoop.

Langland Bay

There’s more of Braid’s handiwork to be found in this delightful clifftop course set above Langland and Caswell Bays on the Gower peninsula. There are sea views from 15 of the holes and a good mix of sterner tests and scoring chances.

Pennard

It’s long been labeled ‘The Links in the Sky’ and once you’ve played it, you’ll understand why, as it plays over the most natural of links terrain set high above Oxwich and Three Cliffs Bays on the Gower peninsula.

Machynys

This ten-year-old Nicklaus creation is a links with a difference as the main adversaries are lakes, large bunkers and testing greens rather than the dunes and pot bunkers of a traditional seaside course. Highlights the variety to be found among West Wales golf courses.

Ashburnham

Holes change direction constantly down the closing stretch. The final four head east, west, north and south in that order, with the 16^th a delightful par 3 to a shallow green ably defended by a ring of front bunkers. One of very few courses to host the PGA Championship more than once.

Tenby

Tenby’s excellent links, which flanks the town’s South Beach, sets its stall out from the testing opener, before taking you on an immensely enjoyable ride through rolling fairways, tall dunes, pot bunkers and occasionally testing green complexes.

Trefloyne

Trefloyne is a lovely restored country manor with a wonderfully relaxed feel. It’s had its own 18-hole parkland course with views out over Tenby and Carmarthen Bay for the last 20 years, and makes a nice contrast with nearby Tenby.

Newport (Pembs)

Once a lovely little nine-hole links course created by James Braid back in 1925, Newport has grown into an 18-holer with its own four-star hotel in recent years.