{"id":100,"date":"2017-06-21T05:48:49","date_gmt":"2017-06-21T05:48:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/doggolf.info\/?p=100"},"modified":"2025-11-03T15:24:30","modified_gmt":"2025-11-03T15:24:30","slug":"course-review-pennyhill-park","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/doggolf.info\/index.php\/2017\/06\/21\/course-review-pennyhill-park\/","title":{"rendered":"Pennyhill Park [CLOSED]"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/doggolf.info\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/Pennyhill-Park-hole-1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" style=\"background-image: none; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px; border-width: 0px;\" title=\"Pennyhill Park - hole 1\" src=\"http:\/\/doggolf.info\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/Pennyhill-Park-hole-1_thumb-1.jpg\" alt=\"Pennyhill Park - hole 1\" width=\"400\" height=\"308\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong><span style=\"color: #008000;\">[Unfortunately, this course is no longer operating]<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.doggolf.info\/DogGolfDB\/Golf%20Course%20Profile.aspx?resort=69\"><span style=\"color: #008000;\">Pennyhill Park<\/span><\/a><span style=\"color: #008000;\"> is the trustfarian of golf courses \u2013 a pint-sized progeny of rich, elegant parents rebelling with a dishevelled coif which can\u2019t hide the natural, inherited good looks underneath.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #008000;\">Pennyhill Park is a gem of a hotel and spa. We have visited there a number of times. The facilities are top flight, but they actually have pretty affordable pricing. Especially, since they regularly run promotions which offer even better value. The food in the restaurants is delicious gourmet quality. And the spa features these heated gel beds that we have never seen anywhere else. Talk about turbo-charged relaxation. A while back, Lori settled into this \u201cnap room\u201d for a kindergarten-like decadently midday snooze, and what a sleep. Face-creasing, leg-twitching, drool on the pillow lack of consciousness.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #008000;\">The golf course is not quite up to these 5-star standards. Sort of the renegade black sheep of the family. The setting is just as charming as the rest of the property, but the course is simply not maintained rigorously. The fairways are a bit grown out (so don\u2019t count on any bonus forward rolling from your drives), and the greens are downright shaggy. The green is more the length of a fringe. Even the bunkers are more grass than sand.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #008000;\">If Pennyhill Park were closer and the green maintained a bit better, I think we would highly consider a membership at Pennyhill. Not just for the dog golfing, but for the whole collection of facilities and luxury amenities. The range on offer is just one of the reasons to look at Pennyhill for a round of dog golfing\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #008000;\"><i>Apprehensive Novice Dog Golfers<\/i> \u2013 If you are new to dog golfing and are worried about how your pups will fare on the fairway, then Pennyhill is a great maiden outing. Especially, if you prefer to try the off-lead experience. It has an extremely casual vibe (they don\u2019t even have the typical dress codes of golf clubs so you can wear what you like). People playing the course will be out for a bit of relaxation and fun so a stray bark from your canine companion won\u2019t be putting them off any tournament quality play.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #008000;\"><i>Neglected Golf Widow(er)<\/i> \u2013 While your other-half might forgive you a bit for taking hours out of the day indulging your passion because you are also taking care of walking Fido, they still might feel a bit neglected from losing out on such prime time hours. If so, invite them along for a treatment and then meet up after your round and their spa for a charming lunch on the veranda.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #008000;\">\u00b7 <i>Risk Aversion<\/i> \u2013 The round cost is modest and I get the sense that if you are staying at the hotel or buying other services at the hotel, you can possibly get a discount (like I said, Pennyhill does a number of promotions so it is worth asking).<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #008000;\"><i>Complete Package <\/i>\u2013 As we sat on the garden deck sipping our elegant cocktails (finer than any we would find at a local doggie pub), we thought of a fantasy get-away: Arrive in evening, have a lovely dinner outside (with the dogs at our feet), spend the night in luxury (for all 4 of us as Pennyhill Park\u2019s hotel is also dog friendly), wake up to an al fresco breakfast, hit 9 holes, have a garden lunch, and finish putting the pups in the room while we have a spa treatment (arrange for late check out). Very few places in the UK can provide such a dog-friendly, luxury weekend.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #008000;\"><em>Engish Rugby Fan<\/em> \u2013 Pennyhill Park has a long standing partnership with England Rugby. Over the years when I have visited there, I have often bumped into renowned ruggers (like Will Carling) roaming the grounds. Recently, England Rugby built a training facility on the grounds so even more props and backs will be running around the property<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"color: #008000;\">Despite being only 9 holes, the course is considerably more than your executive pitch-and-putt. The average length is over 200 yards. And the holes ain\u2019t easy. In addition to the ball-halting hirsute landscape, many of the holes (especially the deceptively close Par 3s) are placed at the end of unforgivingly claustrophobic couloirs of towering trees. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #008000;\">So plenty of opportunity for ball hunting by the hounds. In fact, Grace displayed a bit of a milestone for her ball-in-the-rough-finding skills. Lori hit a ball into some long grass so we walked Grace to the edge and said \u201cfind the ball, Grace\u201d. We could see a bit of white poking under a leaf and Grace walked right up to it a sniffed it. But she left it there! She now knows that she gets treats if she finds a ball and if very enthusiastic when we play the find-the-ball game. Thinking she had had a heat-induced concentration gap, we went up to the ball and pointed at it directly. She sniffed again and left it. Then we noticed that it wasn\u2019t actually Lori\u2019s ball. A few seconds later, Grace was pointing at something a few feet away quite eagerly. THAT was Lori\u2019s ball. Good girl!<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #008000;\"><i>Walk<\/i>: Modest length (especially if you just play the 9 holes once) with several hilly bits.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #008000;\"><i>Water<\/i>: Small pond by the 7<sup>th<\/sup> hole green. Not to mention the water dish offered and served on a silver plater by our fine waiter at the outdoor restaurant (See photo below).<\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/doggolf.info\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/Pennyhill-Park-hole-9.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" style=\"background-image: none; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px; border-width: 0px;\" title=\"Pennyhill Park - hole 9\" src=\"http:\/\/doggolf.info\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/Pennyhill-Park-hole-9_thumb.jpg\" alt=\"Pennyhill Park - hole 9\" width=\"420\" height=\"261\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/doggolf.info\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/Pennyhill-Park-19-hole.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" style=\"background-image: none; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px; border-width: 0px;\" title=\"Pennyhill Park - 19 hole\" src=\"http:\/\/doggolf.info\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/Pennyhill-Park-19-hole_thumb.jpg\" alt=\"Pennyhill Park - 19 hole\" width=\"419\" height=\"563\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[Unfortunately, this course is no longer operating] Pennyhill Park is the trustfarian of golf courses \u2013 a pint-sized progeny of rich, elegant parents rebelling with a dishevelled coif which can\u2019t hide the natural, inherited good looks underneath. Pennyhill Park is a gem of a hotel and spa. We have visited there a number of times. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/doggolf.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/doggolf.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/doggolf.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/doggolf.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/doggolf.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/doggolf.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1486,"href":"http:\/\/doggolf.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100\/revisions\/1486"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/doggolf.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/doggolf.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/doggolf.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}