Camberley Heath – Golf Course Review

Golfer’s Tips

• The driving range is a little way from the clubhouse and then back to the 1st tee, so do leave yourself plenty of time for a hit should you need one before play.
• Plot yourself around the course – keeping the ball visible and in play is at a premium. This particularly applies to the par 5s, where second shots can be blind played over and around heathery banks, so bombing 3 wood may not be the play.
• Unless you are long and very accurate with driver, then lay-up with iron is undoubtedly the approach on the shorter risk-reward holes (4th and 6th, for example), which taper in and around the green at 260+ yards.

Signature Holes

• 2nd – a classic Harry Colt par 3, played uphill to a bowled green with bunkers there to catch under-clubbed tee shots. Club up and be OK with being off the back edge!
• 13th – a meandering, undulating 475 yard par-5, played from a beautiful raised tee, where a heathery bank cuts in at around 230 yards.

Review:

A beautiful heathland treat, I would consider Camberley Heath one of the purest and most charming heathland courses you could ever have the pleasure of playing.

Camberley Heath feels mature and steeped in history, and definitely has the bones of a classic Harry Colt course – the par 3s are excellent as you would expect, which start early with the tricky 2nd played up a hill to a raised green littered with bunkers at the front for the under-clubbed shot, and there are several others including the longer 8th played across a small valley up to a green enshrouded in heathered banks and further clever bunkering.

Aside from the shortest holes, Camberley also possesses a number of short par 4s, which in the main are definitely not ‘filler’ holes and instead provide a really interesting risk-reward challenge, particularly for the longer hitters where 250-260 yards is drivable. Clever tapering of the landing area towards the green, coupled with mature trees at its boundary, make the 4th and 6th excellent examples of this.

Add to this some excellent par 5s, which are all played on undulating terrain, and mature heather and blind shots in certain spots means that the holes do require thought rather than just whacking driver and a follow-up wood/ hybrid. The 3rd evidences the blind second shot hiding the approach up to the raised green, and the excellent 13th is a meandering, undulating 475 yard hole where a heathery bank interjects at c.230 yards but the raised tee presents the entire stretch in beautiful fashion – both great longer holes.

Having read other reviews of this course, as well as its position within the England top 100, then I must be missing something, as I would put this course firmly within the top 40 and superior to many of the higher-ranked Surrey Heathland courses.

• “Top 100” Ranking: 79th (England)
• Golfer View Rating: 85%

https://www.camberleyheathgolfclub.co.uk/

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