Members of Ashburnham have always been very proud of the golf course and of the Club’s history.The course was designed in 1894 by J H Taylor, five times Open Champion. Harry Vardon, who won the Open Championship six times between 1896 and 1914, still the record, called Ashburnham his favourite Welsh course.
Ashburnham has hosted many amateur and professional events, for example players such as Padraig Harrington and David Howell represented their countries at Ashburnham in the Amateur Home Internationals.
The three British and European Tour events held at Ashburnham were each won by winning Ryder Cup captains, Dai Rees, Bernard Gallacher and Sam Torrance.
This “100% record” makes Ashburnham unique in world golf.
Our Ryder Cup connection was highlighted again in 2014 when Jamie Donaldson struck the winning shot at Gleneagles. Jamie won the 2000 Welsh Amateur Stroke Play Championship at Ashburnham.
Naturally, a visitor to Ashburnham is most keen to know about the course itself. Ashburnham is a course in the true links tradition and one of its most interesting challenges is that those holes which, in the links way, appear to be “out” and “back” in fact subtly vary in direction. This means that golfers must keep their wits about them in working out the exact wind direction on each one, for example the 14th and 15th holes at first sight seem to be both downwind on the back nine. However, sometimes the wind can be “helping” on the 14th and “against” on the 15th.
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