Out of the Shadows: Royal Porthcawl Golf Club

Out of the Shadows: Royal Porthcawl Golf Club

For the first time in history, Wales plays host to a major golf championship, and it’s the women’s tour blazing the trail. The iconic Royal Porthcawl Golf Club, long admired by purists for its rugged coastal layout and championship pedigree - chosen as the venue for The AIG Women’s Open. 

In a nation that has produced world-class players and held prestigious golf events in the past, this moment marks a long-overdue elevation onto golf’s biggest stage.

For Wales, long overlooked despite a wealth of championship courses, the arrival of the Open was both overdue and richly deserved. Royal Porthcawl Golf Club, perched on the South Wales coast between Cardiff and Swansea, offered the perfect stage. Granted its royal charter in 1909 by Edward VII, the club sits above the Bristol Channel, a setting of sweeping vistas where the Gower Peninsula and Mumbles headland reveal themselves on clear days.

The course itself is a masterpiece of variety. The opening holes run dramatically along the coastline, where players drive towards the ocean and battle the prevailing winds, waves crashing beyond greens framed by hues of turquoise and white. As the round turns inland, the landscape shifts, revealing elevation changes unusual for links golf but adding a fresh dimension to its test.

At over 7,000 yards, Porthcawl is no pushover, but length alone is not the key. Accuracy, placement and guile are paramount this week. Wayward shots are swallowed by gnarly gorse or punished by pot bunkers as unforgiving as any in Britain and accuracy into greens are going to be the key to unlocking this course.

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