Rusty and Grace

Allow me to introduce Rusty and Grace. Our canine partners in doggolf.info and pretty much its inspiration.

Rusty and Grace are Hungarian Vizslas. The breed is known for being very affectionate which is how they first stole our hearts. Our Vizslas will turn away from food to get affection. They are also known for enjoying and needing LOTS of exercise. Even more than their fellow Hunt-Point-Retrieve (HPR) breeds. If you ever watch Cesar Milan’s “Dog Whisperer” TV show and there is a Vizsla involved, before he has walked through the door, he anticipates the root problem will be lack of sufficient exercise. The owners often think they are doing fine with an amble around the block on lead, but the Vizslas really need to cut loose off lead and fully stretch their legs for at least an hour every day. Cesar has prescribed skateboarding, obstacle courses, biking (we have taken them on 20 mile bike rides and they came back with more energy than we had), and weights in an effort to discharge a bit of their boundless energy. You can see how we thought of them when we were enjoying our 3 hour walks on the golf course. Mind you, we still have to take them for a mini-walk before hitting the links just to take the edge off their energy.

Many people ask if Rusty and Grace are sisters. Actually, they’re not even the same breed, officially. Rusty is a straight haired while Grace was born to wire-haired parents (but her hair came out straight). We had Rusty first, but a breeder (knowing we had been looking for a Vizsla puppy) called us the day after we got Rusty and told us about a rescue situation with this other puppy (born four days before Rusty) called Grace. I still remember the portent of destiny in the form of a text message from my wife about Grace, saying, “I’m just going to go look at the puppy…”

Grace is definitely the dominant one. Bigger and more assertive. Always rounding up “the pack” and making sure she moves along (one of the things we have to be attentive to is if we stop to talk to other people or dogs, she gets quite vocal with the whining that we should be moving on now…in general it’s fine, but on the golf course, we don’t want her laments to distract other golfers). Rusty is less biddable, but despite running faster and farther than Grace, she is also content with being on lead. Grace loves to chase sticks and balls, but Rusty is happy to chase Grace.

With Grace’s leadership, biddability and ball skills, it made sense to make her the front-dog for Dog Golf. If we ever succeed in devising a golf-ball-finding competition, she is our best hope for a competitive entry (we are now working on converting her highly honed stick and tennis ball skills into Top Flight ones).

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Whitney Lakes

A bit of water only enhanced this expansive course a few miles to the northwest of Oxford. We went up to Whitney Lakes this weekend despite calls for some periodic showers. The showers did come, but it didn’t really impinge on our game too much. After getting a bit damp on the 4^th hole, we absconded to one of the shelters on the course by the tee on the 5^th to enjoy some snacks while the darkest clouds blew over. In a few minutes, the weather had cleared and we not only enjoy bright sunshine, but a last afternoon rainbow (see below).

Welcome: Whitney recommends and prefers that dogs be kept on leads, but if the dogs are very biddable and well-behaved and the course has light usage (like it did when we played due to the inclement weather), they are happy for the dogs to be let off for a well-controlled freer amble.

Water: Even on dry days there is plenty of water on the Whitney course with 3 big ponds on the grounds. Fortunately, only one stands between you and the tee on hole #8, but the other sit tauntingly adjacent to the fairways eager to swallow up stray slicing shots. Rusty and Grace enjoyed a cooling romp and tasty drink in one (until a huge, resident swan in one decided he wasn’t in the mood for visitors and chased them out).

Walk: Whitney offers a good, long walk. There are three Par 5s (mercifully all followed by Par 3s) as well as mostly 350+ yard Par 4s adding up to a longish 6460 yard ramble. It might be a long walk, but it sits virtually all flat on the Oxford Plain. Good for the guys – long, wide, open fairways. Good for gals – red tees are 50-100 years in front of yellow.

Wind Down: On the way home, we stopped for dinner at The Butchers Arms in Headington. Not just a dog-friendly pub, but simply one of the most all around friendly pubs we have been to. The owners are gregarious and welcoming as are the two resident cats who wander around (completely unfazed by any of the visiting canine customers). The food is superbly well-prepared and it is a great post-round water hole between Whitney Lakes and the M40.

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DogGolf Database

The database of dog-friendly golf courses is really the heart of DogGolf.info. Everything else is just gravy on the bone. The database is about having a complete list of possible courses, but also an interactive one that you can interrogate to find the one just right for your pack whether for a weekend outing, an extended holiday or even a long term membership.

At the outset, the information will be more thorough within a 25 miles radius of our home in Marlow because (a) our network is deepest there, and (b) I am doing more in depth research in that area (out of self-interest obviously). That means Buckinghamshire, Berkshire, Oxfordshire will have more comprehensive information with a bit of Surrey, Hertfordshire, and Greater London as well.

The index of the whole dataset is the Course Name. We use the short name, not the full on “East Wimblebottom Golf & Spa Resort” (so don’t set your brand police in your marcom department on me to ‘correct’ it).

Several fields in the database you can filter on…

County – So you can get a short list of places close to you.
Postcode – For alternative geo-search
Green Fees – Highest listed for peak times. Vary by times and promotions so just approximate. $0 means no visitors, members only.
Lead required? – Well-trained and biddable dogs might find such courses a bit confining.
Handicap Certificate required? – Many of the finer courses allow dogs, but they do insist on handicap level playing standard.

When you get a listing of courses, you can click on the club name to take you to a Profile snapshot of basic course information. The profile is limited to details that would be of greatest interest to dog-owners. It is expected that if you needed further details, you would click on the link to their website (included in the profile) to find those things out.

Picture – I include one picture of the course just to provide a small sense of the nature of the property (a picture worth a thousand words), but I suspect most people looking to get a feel for the grounds will go through to the course website itself.
Notes – The “dog policy” of the course in their own words (usually from their website, an enquiry response or some other reference)
Members Constraints – Sometimes dogs are only allowed for members or when playing with members. I kept in the “Members Only” clubs because (a) people might be searching for a club to join.
Time Constraints – A some courses dogs are not allowed during specific times, most commonly (a) competitions, and (b) peak busy times.

If anyone has any suggestions of other details we should research and track, please forward them to grace@doggolf.info.

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Redhill and Reigate

Redhill and Reigate Golf Club was our very first “solo” outing with Rusty and Grace. And it might be one of the best courses around for trying out doggie golf.

We had been golfing with friends who were accompanied by their well trained Labrador so we were acquainted with the dynamics of a tail-wagger tagging along. Our two Hungarian Vizslas (Rusty , above, and Grace, in the logo) are very well behaved and reasonably well trained. But you just never know how they will respond to a new environment. What is acceptable behavior in the dog park or rambling trails, might not conform as well to the courtesies of the golf course. In particular, Grace is quite a vocal dog who starts her whines when we hesitate too long on a walk or give attention to other people or, even worse, other dogs. One of the key conventions of golf is keeping quiet at the appropriate times.

We chose RRGC for a number of reasons…

Proximity – Within an hour’s drive from our home.
Price – Lower priced (so if it all went wrong, we could simply pack up and come home without too much of a financial loss).
Personality – More relaxed atmosphere which often seems to go hand-in-hand with value pricing.

The big win was the dogginess of the whole grounds. The course shares public land. As a result, the public don’t just have access to the area via walking paths, but they are also welcome to walk across the course wherever they like. The entire 18 holes were just swarming with canines and their accompanying dog walkers. They were all very courteous and deferential to not interfere with our play, but it made a huge difference in us not feeling out of place. We did appear to be the only golfers there with dogs.

Welcome: The reception told me that they preferred if the dogs were kept on the lead, but there doesn’t appear to be a hard rule on this matter. And most of the dog walkers were off lead anyway.

Walk: The course had only a couple of moderate inclines to manage. It did require you to cross a fairly busy road a few times. The Clubhouse does not allow dogs, but it does have a fenced-off outdoor patio for eating where dogs can go if you fancy a post- or mid-game refreshment.

Water: A few streams provided a sip of water around the course.

Dog amenities – Poo bag containers (hole 1 and 6)

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Why DogGolf.Info

What golf courses in the United Kingdom allow dogs on the course? A simple enough question, but a fine example of how primitive search facilities remain on the Internet.

Google doesn’t work for a number of reasons…

Symantec Ambiguity – If you use Google search looking for “dog” and “golf courses”, then you just get countless listing of courses with “dog-legs”. If you are more specific with phrases like “dogs welcome” or “dogs allowed”, then you have to think of all the different ways that it could be expressed.
Proximity Ambiguity – Searching becomes extra complicated when the search engine gets confused by the many holiday breaks and vacation cottages that are dog-friendly and are also next to or part of a golf course. The hotel might allow them, but not the golf course.
Website Dependency – The basic challenge is that 90% of the clubs simply do not indicate their dog policy on their website. Nearly all of my listings came as the result of someone mentioning the club (in forum or blog post or other research) and me following up with a direct query to the course.

In conducting a bit of research for our own doggie golf interests, I decided to invest in a bit of curation to this question to help other canine caring fairway fans enjoy both their loves at the same time. Hopefully, DogGolf can help links-loving dog owners…

Nearby – The number one question, as stated at top, is “where can we all go play a round with our best friends?”
Doggie Holiday – It’s not just the weekend outings, but also potential vacation breaks where we might want to plot our destination based on somewhere we can hit the greens all together.
Tips – I have been surprised how little information there is about Dog Golf on the web, despite the fact that it is the intersection of two great loves for many people. I will provide a range of tips and reviews in the blog to help make dog golfing that much more easy and enjoyable.

DogGolf.info has a number of features…

Course Finder – The heart of the site is the comprehensive, interactive database of dog-friendly courses in the UK, which you can filter by characteristics like green fees, lead requirements, handicap certificate requirements, advance notification requirements, etc.
Course Profiles – Each dog-friendly course has its own snapshot profile with the key details about its dog policy. The profiles don’t go into great depth about the courses, because the course websites (the profiles include a link to them) are the best places for the more up-to-date and comprehensive details about them.
Course Map – Just to make the proximity planning a bit easier and visual, I have loaded the courses into a shared Google custom map so you can peruse nearby possibilities geographically.
Blog – The blog will feature three primary topics: (a) information about the website, (b) reviews of dog friendly courses, and (c) various titbits, tips and treats for dog-walking golfers.
Ask Grace – Grace is our very own 9-year old Hungarian Vizsla. She is very eager to please and so will be happy to answer all your dog questions from her canine perspective.

Feel free to contact us with any ideas, suggestions, questions, updates or corrections.
Less rough, more ruff!

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Dog Legging It: Dog Friendly Golf Courses in the UK

“Golf is a good walk spoiled” – H S Scrivener

“If aliens saw us walking our dogs and picking up their poop, who would they think is in charge? ” – Anonymous

Why would one want to spoil a walk further by having to cater to a barking, fouling, rampaging mutt? along for the round?

TIME – One of the biggest obstacles to golf is time commitment. Absconding from home for 4 hours often doesn’t ingratiate you to the rest of the family. If it means that you can’t help with the dog walking that day, then you are being even more delinquent. A decent dog walk takes an hour for most medium to large breeds. Instead of shirking this chore on golf days, you can actually give Fido a bonus walk. If the family pressures you about another morning on the greens, you have a family ally where you can plead “But Fido loves it so much!”
COMPANIONSHIP – We love our dogs. Especially when we are away at work and other commitments, spending time with them outdoors and in the sunshine is one of the very reasons we have them in the first place.
DOG CARE – It’s not nice leaving dogs alone in the house for extended periods of time. They have to cross their legs increasingly tighter, get hungrier past dinnertime and tempted into mischief. When we bring our dogs, we can travel further and stay longer (eg. for a drink, dinner, overnight) if we don’t have to worry about the dogs cooped up all day.
RETRIEVAL – Many dogs can and have been trained to locate balls in the rough. This saves the golfer time and lost balls. It also speeds the play to everyone’s benefit (searching for lost balls is one of the biggest causes of slow play).

There are about 2,630 golf courses in the UK (according to Wikipedia), but so far I’ve only uncovered just under a hundred that welcome dogs. I suspect there a quite a number that I haven’t ferreted out, but judging on my initial investigation it looks like the total proportion is about a few percent of the total. It does vary by region. Scotland, Cornwall and the Home Counties seem to have a higher proportion (one golf pro friend reckoned as many as 70% of Scottish courses are dog-friendly), but there are virtually none in Ireland.

Not everyone will be thrilled by the inclusion of your pooch in your group. It’s not just fussy conventionalists who don’t like any innovation or change, but many people with very legitimate concerns…

FEAR – More people than you would think have a downright phobia of dogs. Even the smaller “cute” ones.
ALLERGY – Many people are allergic to dogs and a links encounter could stir a sneezing attack or rash that they would certainly not appreciate during their round.
RELIGION – For Muslims, dogs are “unclean” which means if they come into contact with them, they have to go through a rather tedious and inconvenient cleansing.

Nonetheless, a wide range of golf clubs from public courses to the finest in the world embrace dogs with open arms. Sunningdale claims to be the “most dog friendly golf club in the UK” (see video link below). One course, Goodwood, has gone so far as to create a special membership, the “Kennels Dog Membership” just for dogs, with the proceeds going Battersea Dog Home. And the New Zealand Golf Club (in Surrey, not the South Pacific) tells me that “dogs are ‘mandatory’” with only a touch of kidding around (they go on to add “if you don’t have a dog, there are members who will be happy to rent you theirs for the day.”)

Some of the big golf magazines and websites have done articles on the topic of dogs on the course. Here are a few of the better ones I came across which highlight the UK as being a bit more dog-friendly in the golfing world:

GOLF DIGEST– “We Double Dog Dare You – Bringing your best friend to the course is the most fun you’ll ever have”: “In the United Kingdom, dogs are more likely to be allowed at old links courses with lots of common walking ground than at newer, inland operations. And not to delve into a subject as thorny as the British class system, but golf dogs tend to have a stronger tradition at clubs established by land-owning families for whom fox hunting was an important pastime. Golf was just something else to do in clever tweed when not busy training champions bred from royal bloodlines.”
GOLF ADVISOR– “Let the dogs out, already!”: “Very few public courses in the U.S. allow golfers to bring their dogs along, most likely a result of liability fears and the fact many courses aren’t all that walkable. Golf course superintendents, of course, have energetic sidekicks who chase geese and perform other duties. Courses in the U.K. are generally more welcoming to dogs, especially those historic links courses that double as public park space.”
ESPN – “Dogs welcome at Sunningdale”
“The dogs get so much pleasure from an 18 hole walk…It’s so much fun playing golf with the dogs.” (thanks Nick Saunders).

Here are a few tips for being a responsible and considerate dog companion player.

UNDER CONTROL – Rule #1 is that the dog must be under control at all times. No yelling “Fenton, Fenton…<jc>, Fenton…” if a water fowl, rabbit or squirrel appears. If you are not completely sure about your dog’s biddability in the most tempting situations, then definitely keep them on leads. That said, half the courses require them on leads at all time anyway.
GREENS – Dogs are like trolleys…no dogs on the greens.
BUNKERS – No dogs in bunkers either. If they do wander in, be sure to rake out their prints.
CLEAN UP – Sort of goes without saying, though some might be tempted by the outdoors context to let some “business” off to the side or out of bounds just remain there. But all it takes is someone seeing you not picking up after your dog from a distance to create the appearance of impropriety for the complaints to come in. Or worse, someone traipsing about looking for their ball to step in a mess to get the complaints to really flooding in.

This post is only talking about the courses. There are also specific rules for dogs in the club houses as well as in the lodging which is sometimes affiliated with the course. The club house restrictions are more manageable (if dogs can’t go in, you can eat at pub down the road), and frankly the lodging tends to be dog friendly anyway.

In the coming weeks, Dog Golf will explore the world of canine clubbing with tips direct from our own two links lassies (Rusty and Grace – see photo at top) as well as helpful interactive information to assist your next outing.

A few Rory McIlroy fans on the fairway.