Golf Traveller Issue 15

GOLF

TRAVELLER

ISSUE 15

• THE OPEN GOLF TOUR 2020

WITH COMPLIMENTS

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GOLF TRAVELLER ISSUE15

Cover photo: Shane Lowry, winner of The 148th Open.

Photo: Andrew Redington/Getty Images Sport

Rory McIlroy of Northern Ireland putts on the 7th hole during the third round of The 146th Open Championship at Royal Birkdale on July 22, 2017 in Southport, England.

Photo: Richard Heathcote/R&A/R&A via Getty Images

2020 THE OPEN

Big Ben, London, England

Photo by Luke Stackpoole on Unsplash

GOLF TOUR 13 July – 30 July 2020

2020 The Open Golf Tour Royal St George’s, Kent, England.

Monday 13 July – Thursday 30 July 2020 Tour Overview Excitement for The 149th Open Championship at Royal St George’s in Kent in 2020 is already building, and we’ve put together a luxury tour that will put you right in the heart of all the action.

PaR nz Golfing Holidays is proud to offer a 18-day tour which includes seeing for yourself how the world’s best golfers battle it out over 2 days at The Open Championship 2020. But that’s not the only highlight! We play on some of the most amazing golf courses in England, Wales and Scotland, many of which are past and future Open venues. We stay at beautiful hotels often with serious bragging rights. Postcard from The Savoy in London anyone?

As an Authorised Provider for The Open, sanctioned by the R&A, PaR nz Golfing Holidays are making sure you can enjoy The 149th Open with full television coverage of play while you enjoy and spoil yourself with the delights of an exclusive hospitality experience for the day.

The ‘Engravers Hospitality Package’ at Royal St George’s, includes: • Located overlooking Royal St. George’s challenging par 3 16th hole • Stunning views from the upper level balcony • Exclusive Open Gift • Player Q&A

• Reserved Parking pass (1 per 2 guests) • Official Open admission ticket to with fast track entrance • Souvenir programme order of play • Full TV coverage of play • Air conditioning • Private restroom facilities within the pavilion • Welcome lounge and hospitality hosting staff • Private tables to suit your group size • Access to purchase 18th Green Grandstand seats (subject to availability) The first champion to hold up the Claret Jug at Royal St George’s, was John Henry Taylor in 1894. Harry Vardon had the honours in 1899. Australians will remember the 1993 championship and a proud winner, none other than Greg Norman! The last championship held at this prestigious club was in 2011, when a tearful Darren Clarke won the tournament.

But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. The tour itself begins on Monday, 13 July 2020 when we meet at The Grove Golf Resort & Spa near London for a welcome dinner at the Players Lounge. Just 30 kilometres outside London and set in 120 hectares of rolling Hertfordshire countryside, The Grove is a five-star, authentically restored retreat and former home of the Earl of Clarendon. Through the nineteenth century, the estate was a favourite weekend destination for Queen Victoria, former

The Grove Golf Resort & Spa

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The 16th at Royal Birkdale prime minister Lord Palmerston and later, King Edward VII. The Grove was headquarters for the London, Midland and Scottish Railway during World War II with the grounds being used to build air raid shelters and underground bunkers.

London is the perfect start for our golfing experience. The Grove Golf Course, designed by Kyle Philips, is one of the UK’s newest and most prestigious golf projects. It held the 2006 World Golf Championship, won by Tiger Woods, and hosted the British Masters 2016. The course provides plenty of challenges, and its quality greens are kept at USGA standards year-round.

After two nights’ rest at The Grove Hotel, we travel by luxury coach to stay three nights at The Savoy in London, a magnificent five-star hotel on The Strand right by the Thames near Waterloo Bridge. As the first purpose-built deluxe hotel in the UK when it opened in 1889, it has welcomed many wealthy and famous guests over the decades, including film stars, entrepreneurs and royalty. The hotel re-opened in 2010 after a threeyear renovation and restoration project to refresh its English Edwardian and Art Deco design features.

From our London base, it’s an easy train ride daily to The Open at Royal St George’s, and the newly renovated train station courtesy of the R&A, near Sandwich Bay. Our package includes official tickets and hospitality on Thursday, July 16 and Friday, July 17.

On the weekend we travel on to the five-star Celtic Manor Resort in the Welsh Usk Valley for two nights and a round on its

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The Twenty Ten course.

Celtic Manor, set in 800 hectares near Newport in south-east Wales, was host to the 2014 NATO Summit attended by 4000 delegates and officials including US President Barack Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel. The Manor House itself is about 150 years old, and was known as Coldra House.

Originally a private home, it accommodated a maternity home from the 1940s until 1975, and later became a hotel. The first championship golf course, Roman Road designed by Robert Trent Jones Snr, opened at Celtic Manor in 1995, and a second championship golf course, Wentwood Hills was built in 1999.

As a football fan dreams of playing at Wembley, a tennis fan of playing at Wimbledon, the chance to play a Ryder Cup course is every golfer’s dream. The Twenty Ten is the result of the collaboration between the European PGA, tour pros and golf course architects to create the first course specifically designed to host golf’s greatest team tournament, the Ryder Cup. With a four-star-plus rating and designed by Ross McMurray to challenge the world’s greatest players, the course provides risk and reward opportunities ideal for team play. To achieve this, nine holes from the former Wentwood Hill course were rebunkered and integrated into The Twenty Ten, while the final half of the course provides a dramatic sequence of finishing holes.

This is a course about variety. It combines a hilly landscape with water hazards – home to otter, dormice and badger – among half the holes.

The Savoy, London

Photo by Mark de Jong on Unsplash

Photo by Benjamon Davies on Unsplash

The Twenty Ten course, Celtic Manor

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The 17th at The Brabazon at The Belfry By this time, we’ll be in good shape to head nor th-east past Birmingham to tackle two championship courses, PGA National and The Brabazon while staying for three nights at The Belfry Hotel and Resort, just down the road from the PGA’s headquarters. The resort recently won awards for the World’s Best Golf Hotel at the 2018 World Golf Awards.

The PGA National is the newest of the three golf courses at The Belfry. Designed by Dave Thomas, it is the only course in England, and the first in European history, to carry the PGA branding. Established in 1997, the PGA National sits nicely alongside the Brabazon and is set up for hard and fast golf.

The open midland terrain provides a championship golf course with 70 strategically placed cavernous bunkers along with four constructed lakes and undulating greens. Banks on either side of the fairways give an amphitheatre effect befitting a tournament course that has hosted two European Tour events.

The Brabazon, a course conceived by former PGA director Colin Snape and designed by Peter Alliss and Dave Thomas,

The 12th at PGA National at The Belfry

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is one of the UK’s iconic golf courses. Open since 1977, the course was selected as England’s Best Golf Course at the World Golf Awards in 2018. Named after a former PGA president, this course has hosted four Ryder Cups – more than any other course in the world. Thousands of golf fans have made a pilgrimage to the Midlands venue to take on a course where greats such as Tiger Woods, Jack Nicklaus, Nick Faldo and Tom Watson have played. Many golfers replay the scenes where Seve Ballesteros’s drove a mighty 275 metres across water onto the 10th green and Sam Torrance sank a seven-metre putt on the 18th to win 1985 Ryder Cup for the European team. It was the first time in 28 years that Europe had beaten the United States.

Liverpool is our next destination, where we stay for four nights at the historic DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel so we can play three of the UK’s finest golf courses – Royal Liverpool, Royal Lytham & St Annes and Royal Birkdale – right on the city’s doorstep.

Also known as Hoylake, the four-star Royal Liverpool Course commands a special place in Britain’s golfing history as the

The Belfry Hotel and Resort second oldest seaside course. Its current design is credited to George Morris, Robert Chambers, and Harry Colt. When it was built in 1869, the course was integrated into the racecourse owned by the Liverpool Hunt Club, which is why the first and eighteenth holes are named “Course” and “Stand”. Queen Victoria gave the club its royal designation in 1871 and, with the racecourse gone, the Royal Liverpool began hosting major tournaments. In 1885 the links hosted the first British Amateur Championship and in 1902 the first international golf match between Great Britain and the US – today called The Walker Cup. However, its principal claim to fame is playing host to The Open Championship on 12 occasions, the first in 1897 and a 13th time scheduled for 2022.

Royal Lytham & St Annes, designed by George Lowe and built in 1897, is not a classic links course in the sense that it tests golfers’ strategies as much as their physical ability. The 1952 Open Champion Bobby Locke wryly commented: “This course has a phenomenal number of bunkers, 385 in fact, one

Liverpool for every day of the year, with several extra for leap years”.

The course received its royal title from King George V, shortly before hosting its first Open Championship in 1926. The course has always been popular with female golfers, including Manchester industrialists’ wives who took special golfers’ trains to the course. The Royal Lytham has hosted the Women’s British Open five times, most recently in 2018. Additionally, the fourstar-plus course has accommodated The Open Championship 11 times as well as the Senior Open in 2019. The course holds significance in New Zealand’s golfing history. It was here that Sir Bob Charles won The Open in 1963, as the only left-hander to win a major championship until Mike Weir won the 2003 Masters. Sir Bob Charles remains the only New Zealander to have won The Open.

Situated on the coast near Southport, Royal Birkdale has held more championship and international events since World War II than any other course. Further, Natural England has classified 80 per cent of this five-star links course as a ‘site of special

The 12th at Royal Liverpool Course

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Royal Birkdale

11th green at the Ailsa at Trump Turnberry scientific interest’, reaffirming its significant conservational value and impressive scenic views. The product of famous golf architect George Lowe, the Hawtree family of golf course architects, as well as champion golfer JH Taylor, Royal Birkdale is widely regarded as providing one of the world’s greatest golf experiences. It has been voted the number-one golf club in England, one of the top five clubs in the UK, and is among the top 35 courses in the world. It has come a long way since 1889 when the club was formed with a nine-hole course at Shaw Hills. Five years later, the course was extended to 18 holes and moved to its present home at Birkdale Hills. King George VI bestowed the club’s royal charter in 1951.

Our central-city accommodation is a perfect starting point for exploring Liverpool. The World Heritage Site waterfront along the Mersey River is a must-see and most visitors enjoy seeing the ‘Three Graces’, comprising Europe’s first skyscraper, the Royal Liver Building; The Cunard Building; and the Port of Liverpool Building. A whole Sunday off provides freedom to

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indulge. For Beatles fans this could be the perfect opportunity to visit the ‘The Beatles Story’ permanent exhibition of fascinating Fab Four memorabilia or to take a two-hour Beatles Magical Mystery Tour that ends at the legendary Cavern Club, which still operates as a contemporary music venue.

The last leg of our tour takes us north to Scotland and three sumptuous nights at the five-star Trump International Turnberry on the rugged Ayrshire’s coastline. This was first purposeplanned golfing resort in Britain when it was built in 1906. The Trump Organization purchased the golf resort in 2014, invested in a full restoration, and today proudly features it as one of 19 in its worldwide portfolio. It was voted the Best Golf Resort in Europe 2019 and is home to two courses, The Ailsa and King Robert the Bruce.

The Ailsa was the first of three golf courses developed at Trump Turnberry, a bucket-list destination for many golfers.

Named after the third Marquess of Ailsa, who owned the land on which it was built, this five-star course is one of the most scenic

The 9th at King Robert the Bruce, Turnberry championship locations. Designers include Willie Fernie, A. N. Weir, C. K. Hutchison, Philip Mackenzie Ross, and Mackenzie and Ebert.

The granite island, Ailsa Craig, is a striking feature of this coastline, as are the castle ruins, and the 140-year-old Turnberry lighthouse, which serves as a course halfway house.

The golf course land was used as a military air base during the first World War and again converted into a Royal Air Force flying school during World War II, with the hotel serving as a hospital. It wasn’t until 1951 that The Ailsa course re-opened after architect Philip Mackenzie Ross removed the wartime runways and reinstated a championship course. The Ailsa has staged The Open four times (1977, 1986, 1994 and 2009) and sits among the world’s top 15 golf courses.

King Robert the Bruce was designed by Martin Ebert and opened in 2017. The four-star-plus course was named after the mediaeval King of Scots, Robert the Bruce, who secured

Scotland’s independence from England, and who is believed to have been born at Turnberry Castle. Formerly known as the Arran in the mid-1950s and the Kintyre in the early 2000s, the King Robert the Bruce course was rebranded in 2016 by the same architect who was responsible for the revived Ailsa. Its mix of exceptional bunkering, rock-solid links holes and delightful greens are proving popular. The King Robert the Bruce has been used a final qualifying course for major championships, including The Open and British Seniors.

Our tour draws to a close with a private farewell dinner in the Ailsa Craig Suite before we transfer the next morning to Glasgow airport.

PaR nz Golfing Holidays loves The Open. Come join this special 2020 England, Wales & Scotland Golf Tour, with two days at the 149th Open!

To register and reserve your place – contact: denise@parnz.co.nz or kim@parnz.co.nz

Visit our website: www.parnz.co.nz Or call us on +64 9 486 1077, Australia Toll Free 1800 018 575

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PaR nz Golfing Holidays Partners and Associates PaR nz Golfing Holidays is a member of:

PaR nz Golfing Holidays proudly works with:

PaR nz Golfing Holidays Golf Partners

PaR nz Golfing Holidays Chosen Charities:

PaR nz Golfing Holidays proudly has a Corporate membership with Windross:

PaR nz Golfing Holidays – 2017 and 2018 Best Outbound Golf Tour Operator – World Golf Awards 2016 Best Inbound Golf Tour Operator – World Golf Awards

New Zealand's Best Inbound Golf Tour Operator

New Zealand's Best Outbound Golf Tour Operator

New Zealand's Best Outbound Golf Tour Operator

PaR nz Corporate Events Limited trading as PaR nz Golfing Holidays, Established August 2000.

Office located in Takapuna, Auckland, New Zealand . Postal address PO Box 331395, North Shore 0740 Phone +64 (9) 486 1077. Directors Denise Langdon & Kim Buckley Contact denise@parnz.co.nz and kim@parnz.co.nz Photo credits: R&A, Golf Courses as included, Tourism Ireland, PaR nz image libraries.

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