Slaley Hall Hunting Golf Course Review
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Par 72, 6,850 yards
Slope 132
GM Verdict – A big golf course playing over both moorland and parkland with a wonderfully secluded feel in places.
Favourite Hole – The 18th is one of the best par 4s, playing gently uphill to a raised green via a fairway that pinches in around driving distance.
Slaley Hall, south of Hexham on the Northumberland side of the border with County Durham, was once an Edwardian mansion with a 3,000-acre sporting estate, created by the Hunting family. That name lives on in the highly regarded Dave Thomas golf course built in the 1980s when the original mansion was extended and transformed into a top-class golf hotel. With flowering shrubs flanking some fairways, and towering pines and other mature trees enveloping others, the course was hailed by some as ‘the Augusta of the north’ - it's certainly one of the best golf courses in Northumberland.
Related: the best golf courses in Durham
There's a moorland feel to many holes on the Hunting Course including the 13th
The nines were switched around a few years ago on the Hunting course, which has a moorland feel in places, and parkland feel on other holes where beautiful azaleas and rhododendrons line the fairways. This makes good sense, for although the 1st is now steeply uphill, it is not overly long, and the two par 5s that follow let you open your shoulders more than on the early holes of the back nine. The uphill par-3 5th is then a cracker played through a slender funnel of pines.
The 5th is a cracking uphill par-3 through a slender avenue of towering pines
It also means that the final hole is now one of the best on the course, a testing long, narrow par 4 that plays gently back up to a raised green. There’s water to contend with near the end too - left of the par-4 14th and then on long par-3 15th - before three suitably stout par 4s close things out. The views are, at times, liberating, and the feeling as you play your way round is one of serenity and seclusion.
The par-3 15th is one of consecutive back-nine holes where water features prominently
On several holes the premium is on positional play, most notably on the 11th where the tee shot must steer its way round bunkers and a ditch yet be sufficiently long to leave a clear view of the green hidden away round to the right. The par-4 12th is another of those pretty holes adorned by flowering shrubs.
The 12th is one of several holes flanked by colourful shrubs
If the final hole is now one of the toughest on the course, the former 18th – now the 9th – is no slouch either as, despite playing downhill, there is a cross-hazard that may well take driver out of your hands. Laying back on the fairway will then leave a long approach to a green set in front of the mansion, which may prove visually appealing but also technically challenging.
The course finishes well with one of the strongest and best par 4s of all
This is one of the north-east’s premier golf venues, and although comparisons with Augusta can be a mixed blessing, these are undoubtedly magnificent surroundings in which to enjoy a round. The sister Priestman course, which opened in 1999, allows perhaps a little more room to manoeuvre.
