Seascale

There was no choice. I had to flush from my mind the near-vertical ascent, the giant visible bunker and the other potential traps that I could not see.

The ball simply had to find the green; otherwise, my hopes of playing in an international event in Morocco would be extinguished.

I was one down in my matchplay at Seascale, with my opponent in a sand trap down the right, so I swished my nine-iron and the ball floated towards the target.

I did not know that further hazards lay beyond the green, but fortunately, my ball held up on the edge of one of them, and I completed the hole in par to take the game to extra time.

Seascale had been a joy. It was on my hit list after it was announced in England’s top 100 in the 2026 list, and we discovered that it was entirely deserving of its place.

The club is not easy to reach. Even from its Cumbrian ‘neighbour’ Silloth, it was a 90-minute drive, and it took us more than an hour on windy roads to reach the motorway after our round.

The railway may be a better option; there is a station nearby, and the line runs right between the links and the beach.

Seascale’s story was told to us by General Manager Adam Lamb ahead of our round.

He grew up on a farm which had grazing rights to the course until his grandfather signed them over to the club.

He took an interest in greenkeeping as a lad and joined the club, before travelling to venues in the USA to further enhance his expertise.

Seascale is a world away from the rarefied surroundings of Muirfield Village, where he worked, but he has brought much of his learning back.

Nowadays, when he is not sheep shearing on the farm, he is imparting the wisdom that has helped make Seascale’s fairway turf tight and its greens run impeccably.

However, Mother Nature plays a greater role in the drama of this course than any individual.

Let’s be honest, the opening two holes give little clue to the fun ahead. The opener is steeply uphill, but a decent drive will lead to a comfortable pitch into a green that falls sharply from back to front.

The second is even more straightforward: a wide-open fairway on a short par-four that holds little peril.

And then it begins.

The third demands a drive from an elevated tee from where the sea can be seen on the left and the Sellafield nuclear plant looms ahead.

But the obstacle on this hole is Adam’s farm, because it cuts in from the right. Mrs W and I went uncomfortably close to its border with our drives and needed to play over it if we were to find the green with our second shots. Alas, comedy prevailed, and they were deposited with the sheep.

From then on, every hole demands tactical appreciation and the ability to strike the ball over swathes of tangly rough.

Nowhere is this more true than on the par-five seventh, which has a sequence of bunkers down the right amid some ball-clinging, nasty stuff. Its fairway leads to a green that is beautifully framed by a natural dune.

My round had been serene until this point, holding a handy two-shot lead over my opponent in the company of our wives, who were also playing.

However, it looked like I would struggle to maintain that lead on the intriguing par-three eighth. It is played from a raised tee past a thick bush to the right and a sharp dip to the left. My approach was short, and I putted through the green by a yard. Fortunately, my four was good enough to square the hole.

I did drop a shot on the ninth, however, by being too aggressive on arguably Seascale’s best hole. This features another raised tee towards a fairway that has a bail-out on the left and a steep fall-off into a gully on the right.

The approach is even scarier because of a stream that winds down the right-hand side. I over-compensated and blasted over a grassy dune down the left, never to see my ball again.

It is followed by a mind-boggling par-three with a stream running directly next to the green on the front and right, and a grassed hillock on the left. I can attest that a shot aimed at the flag may well end up in the water.

It sets the tone for a heck of a back nine, which continues with a huge par-four towards the nuclear site.

“Hit to the left,” my opponent suggested to his wife, so she avoided the stream which runs at a diagonal across the testing par-three 13th. She took him a tad literally, but a call to the divorce lawyer was put on hold when she found her ball in the flowery rough near the railway line.

Meanwhile, I holed my longest putt of the day to put myself two up.

However, things changed dramatically when he reduced the arrears on the long par-four 14th and then parred the stellar 16th.

This stroke-index-one hole runs alongside a huge dune to the left, then turns a corner into a blind green with a grassed pit to the right. A four here is worth a shirt over the head.

Comedy came on the 17th, which demands an upward drive over a substantial hill towards a marker post that looks the size of a matchstick.

I walked ahead after what I thought had been a good drive, as we allowed a single player to take his tee shot. His ball came so close to me that I ducked and fell on my backside.

I digress. Bunker woe on the penultimate hole left me one down and facing plucky defeat. However, I squared on the last and managed to see the game out on the extra hole.

It was a superb match on a links that certainly lives up to its burgeoning reputation. Seascale may be difficult to find, but the effort is heartily rewarded.