Pitchmarks #40 - 7th April 2024 - Trevose
We’re in Trehuel Number Five, one of many luxurious apartments at Trevose Golf & Country Club, and a serious upgrade on my normal camper van slumber.
After 54 holes the previous day, I don’t exactly spring from this comfortable mattress, but a shower batters me into life, a warm up for the rain that is forecast. I can hear a blustery wind whipping through the car park, and as the light starts to reveal the golf course through the vast windows of our lounge, I pull on my kit, and head for the door.
This dose of links action - Perranporth and St Enodoc, now Trevose - was badly needed, as the inland golf courses are delicate, having been pummeled by rain for weeks. Out here, the sand drains in minutes, and a constant breeze dries out the seaside grasses, ready for crisp irons shots and confident strides. Our shoes will be cleaner when we finish than they are when we start.
As we walk to the first tee - the only people awake in the resort, it seems - I am reminded of a sign I saw on the club’s website, urging players to “get a move on”, and that “3 hours a round is too slow”. I smile, for my final check of the weather confirms what I overheard in the bar the previous evening - a “violent storm” is approaching, and I have learned the hard way that when the locals use such a term, you might pay attention. So we “get a move on”, and set the pace for the day, though we’re on about the seventh before another silhouette appears up on that first tee.
The Championship Course, laid out by Harry Colt in 1925, starts strong and maintains that pace throughout. At the first, I hammer my drive then flush a rescue, and still have a wedge left. It’s a par four, but with the wind off the Atlantic, par values and yardages mean little out here. The second brings us to the cusp of the dunes, the next soil west Newfoundland, then the short third turns right. At the fourth, whose gentle swing left hugs Constantine Bay, the green seems to perch on the very edge of Britain, and this morning the waves are crashing with such intensity that even the Booby’s Bay surfers are absent. This is not a good sign for the groups (way) behind us.
From here, the holes wriggle in and out, always changing direction, and testing every club in the bag. One blistering hail shower has even the greenkeepers hunkered down under cover, and as we pass the halfway hut, it takes great self-control not to break in and start heating broth, or blending Shovrils. Barely two hours after starting, I am lining up a third putt on the final green when another few dots fall, and this time it is rain, and as we dash inside, the heavens open wide, and I am grateful for the earlier reminder to “get a move on”, though in another way it is all over far too soon.
We change quickly and go foraging for coffee, and the delightful staff bring us not only flat whites and homemade muffins that we inhale, but the same warm smiles that greeted us on arrival last night. Somehow everyone at Trevose seems pleased to be here, and something clicks for me. I spot a friend I’d seen heading into dinner the previous evening, and he and his visiting group are urgently adding layers, and peering upwards. And I note that no-one seems that surprised that we have already played and it is barely nine o’clock, so maybe people do keep it moving round here.
But this is their twentieth year coming here as a group, and in such routines, Trevose makes even more sense to me. The Championship Course is a great test, and a gorgeous place to be, yet it remains a rugged links where others have become too polished, somehow. In those two decades, they’ll have had many idyllic strolls in this sublime coastal paradise, though today will not be a day for short sleeves and sun cream. But in their commitment to an annual retreat - a cherished chance to drop back into the simplicity of lasting friendship and golfing leisure - they sign up for days like this, and the brutal onslaught of this morning’s weather will soon just be part of the folklore of their tradition.
It’s funny, golf. We build these relationships with the places we go, and sometimes it is love at first sight, and other times confusion. And how we play, and who we are with are critical elements, and for my friend and his group, their pilgrimage to this neck of the woods is special, important. The first date in the diary each year; a habit worth protecting.
There is nowhere to hide from the elements, but that’s sort of the idea, and the whole experience is set up for comfort and convenience, with great golf layered on top. This is a place to come and relax - with the Headland and short courses, and a pool, and tennis, and a games room, it couldn’t be better for groups and families alike. But I am here for the golf, and every now and then, a course gives me enough promise to make me want to head back, to immerse myself in it. And I think I just got a dose of that with Trevose. So I hang up the waterproofs, and study the scorecard, and wonder when I might get down that way again…
Sounds like your speed ⛳️
I loved the line "The first date in the diary each year; a habit worth protecting". So true!