Knighton Heath – Golf Course Review

Golfer’s Tips

• The second tee shot is a potential early card wrecker if an attempt to cut the corner goes wrong. The fairway is wide at the corner, so take an iron, leaving a reasonably straight forward short to mid iron into the green and your score still intact.
• Favour accuracy and the left hand side of the fairway on the par 5 9th hole. The second half of the hole is blinded by the hill, but the green will not be accessible from the right rough or trees due to a slight dogleg right.

Signature Holes

• 4th – a visually spectacular hole from the tee, playing down from a tiered tee complex to a significantly downhill and right to left sloped fairway.
• 13th – the archetypal Knighton Heath hole. A short par 4 played down from an elevated tee to a dogleg right with a bunker on the corner, and then the approach played uphill to a sloping green seemingly nestled in a corner. A lovely shorter hole.

Review:

This course, flying under the radar given the strong local competition from Parkstone and Broadstone particularly, was a pleasant surprise.

Played in very wet wintery conditions, the course stood up very well, providing a good test as well as being an attractive round.

A heathland slash parkland course, it is very much characterised by short, tight par 4s, often with raised tees and greens, which in some cases are very attractive. Demandong disciplined straighter tee shots, driver is only really used on a handful of holes, and even the two par 5s are only c.450 yards – a short track, but far from unpleasant or boring.

The start is a reasonably simple one, with the 1st being one of the more mundane par 4s, but then 2 and 3 challenge in different ways with a doglegging par 4 around the corner followed by a long 200 yard par 3.

Stepping onto the 4th is where Knighton Heath begins to deliver its real strength – the landscape is a meandering and undulating one, and playing to these strengths are clever, shorter par 4s at 4, 5 and 6 where tees, fairways and greens are often on different elevations with ground slopes to contend with. 8 is much the same after the flatter but longer 7th, and then after the short, blind par 5 9th you can take stock of what was probably a really pleasant surprise.

The back nine is flatter but more varied in length, with a couple of short par 3s and three 400+ yard holes from 15 to 17, but the real standouts are another pair of shorter par 4s on holes 12 and 13 – the latter in particular is a very clever hole which fits the eye nicely from the tee.

The greens rolled exceptionally well given the time of year and conditions, apparently an hallmark of Knighton Heath, and the course as a whole was in decent nick.

Clubhouse and other facilities probably bring the club down as a whole, but a thoroughly enjoyable round. One small gripe though is the finish, which is a relatively simple short par 3 18th that feels somewhat shoved on the end after some very strong holes preceding it on the back nine.

• “Top 100” Ranking: 8th (Dorset)
• Golfer View Rating: 67%

https://www.knightonheathgolfclub.co.uk

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