A nice play for a cheeky nine holes! (Central London Golf Centre)

Member Name: Beanie8844

Product:	Central London Golf Centre
Date:	29/06/09 (99 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: nice greens, attracts decent people, challenging course

Disadvantages: fairways not in great shape, holes close together

I have just returned from playing a round of golf with a friend at the Central London Golf Centre. I had never played their before, but my friend recommended it as he had and I was quite impressed by the place.

The golf club is only a few minutes drive from Earlsfield High Street and due to its location they have had to squeeze a lot into a relitavely small space; but there are still plenty of car spaces in the car park. The course in 9 holes, but you can obviously by a card enabling you to go round twice and play 18; although I'm glad we didn't do this today as we would have ended up completely sunburnt, it was a scorcher! There is also a driving range within the grounds, but unlike the conventional style it is completely enclosed and you cannot hit a ball as far as you would like as the far fencing is merely about forty meters from the tees. I don't think it's a range you would use purely as a range, rather a few practice balls to get your eye in before hitting the course.

Like most courses you have to pay before you play and this is done at the club shop. I was a little disspointed upon arrival as there was nobody manning the shop, so we had to wait about five minutes which was rather frustrating. The round cost £11.00 which wasn't too bad I thought, especially as the nine hole course isn't a par three and actually contains many par fours and a couple of holes which should be par fives!

So, what was the course like?
I was very impressed by it to be honest. Firstly at every hole you have the option to tee off using either the astroturf tee or on the grass by the tee markers; naturally we used the grass tees as you always hit the ball better from here.

The greens were in relitavely good condition considering we haven't had proper rain for a while now and the temperature for the past week or so has been through the roof. However, I think the club have put most of their energy into making sure the greens are in good nick because the fairways looked rather brown and dry, meaning they were quite hard, but this wasn't the end of the world.

There weren't that many other golfers using the course either which is always a good thing; nothing worse than slow players or feeling like you're being rushed by a group behind you. This enabled us to play at our own pace, enjoy the course and enjoy the sunshine.

As I mentioned earlier, there are some quite long and challenging holes. There are also a number of bunkers on most holes so don't forget your sand wedge. The sixth and ninth holes involve shots over water, which is a nice touch, although it does make things quite difficult. My playing partner lost two balls on the ninth!

Once we finished the round we thought it would be rude if we didn't have a nice pint in the sunshine! The club has a nice bar facility and tables and chairs with sun umbrellas outside so you can enjoy your drink whilst watching other people slog their way around the course. I believe the bar also serves hot and cold food, but I didn't manage to look at a menu.

The only negative thing I could say about the club is that because they have to be as efficient as possible with their space, many of the holes are very close together and many are parallel; a couple of times when misshitting drives I landed them on the hole nextdoors fairway. This wasn't a problem because of the small amount of people on the course, but wouldn't be as good on a busier day. This wasn't too much of a problem and on the whole it is a course that I would recommend to golfers.

Thanks for reading, feel free to comment.

Summary: well worth a visit