Welcome – Greys Green public course’s welcome was a warm as the heat wave hitting the country especially with our late afternoon tee time. Many signs at the reception make clear that dogs are welcome. We passed a number of dog walkers using the paths which cross through the course, and we even happened upon a fellow dog-golfer with an ever so alert border collie in tow.
Walk – The course does undulate like It Zwibble’s Mount Lumpy Bumpy all way onto the greens which have more curves than a Ruben’s pinup. But other than the roly-poly terrain, it is all a relatively flat walk. Except for the 16th hole which plummets from the tee and then climbs steeply to the green after the most severely angled dog-leg I have ever seen (putting the dog-leg into dog-golf). At 6000+ metres, the course provides a plenty long walk, but that measurement understates the true length of perambulation. Many of the holes have a 100+ yard walk from pin to tee. The walk from reception to the 1st tee is longer than many par 4s. Fortunately, with the sunny day, all these traipsing transfers are nearly all shaded in a lovely canopy of trees. Another bonus to the walk was the exceedingly well marked signs to the next hole at every green. Being habitual visitors to new courses, our walks are often inadvertently extended by getting misdirected along the course so we were particularly appreciative of this feature.
Water – A number of artificial rain-water catcher ponds were pretty much dried up, but the 9th hole does return to the reception where you can buy bottled water.
Wildlife – Given the rough-and-ready aesthetic of the course, it was no surprise to come upon all manner of wildlife including rabbits and even a herd of cattle in an adjacent field. But the biggest surprise (perhaps of all out outings) was the fly-by of a micro-light down the 18th hole fairway (see photo at bottom).
Wind Down – Coronavirus is still keeping the pubs shut and a scan of dog-friendly pubs did not uncover any in the area offering even take-away in the lock-down. However, the day of our game the government did make the announcement about pubs opening on 4th July so soon we will be able to resume our post-dog-golfing wind downs.
