Thorpeness Hotel and Golf Club in Suffolk, “Britain’s greenest golf course,” welcomes more than 40 of Britain’s finest veteran golf professionals this week for the PGA Super 60’s Championship.
The overall winner of the STRI Golf Environment Awards in 2012 is dubbed the most environmentally friendly golf course in Britain.
Thorpeness was recognised for its achievement when the Professional Golfers Association named it host venue for this week’s PGA Super 60’s, which will be contested by a field of 43 golf professionals – including several former Ryder Cup players and renowned coaches – paired with amateur partners.
The field includes ex-Ryder Cup players Lionel Platts and Maurice Bembridge, Bill Ferguson – former coach to Colin Montgomerie and Ian Woosnam, Scotland’s Jim Farmer and Yorkshireman Parnell Reilly, both former Captains of the PGA.
The 36-bedroom golf hotel and James Braid designed coastal heathland course is in the holiday village of Thorpeness, on Suffolk’s HeritageCoast, a place famous as a “home-from-home” for many generations of English families who escape to East Anglia for the summer months.
Paul Clouting, hotel director at Thorpeness Hotel and Golf Club, said: “One thing our guests always tell us is how much they feel at home when they stay at Thorpeness, and how this is their favourite golf club away from their home clubs.
We’re proud of how golfers feel when they stay and play here and we are excited about welcoming Britain’s best veteran golf professionals to experience our hospitality and take on our golf course this week.”
Thorpeness is a rare combination of a classic British Golf Club set in a comfortable country hotel, where golfers can walk from bedroom to first tee in under a minute, and take drinks in a traditional bar with polished wood panelled honours board surrounded by golf trophies.
There is a strong local interest in this week’s PGA Super 60’s.
Thorpeness Head Professional Frank Hill, 69, is hoping to win the tournament for a second time and hopes home advantage can help him land the £1,250 first prize. He’s been Head Professional at the Suffolk club since 1997 and knows the course better than any other competitor.
Frank said: “It’s a fabulous achievement for Suffolk and Thorpeness to bring this national tournament to our pretty little corner of England. Over the past three years we’ve undergone extensive improvements and refurbishments to the golf course, including remodelling fairway and greenside bunkers, reshaping swales, run offs and aprons by the greens, adding in new tees and lengthening the 9th hole from a par four to a par five.
“The course is playing superbly well and the winner will have to play exceptional golf to finish top of the leaderboard.”
Frank won the PGA Super 60’s in 2006 with Brian Underwood from Lincolnshire and aims to repeat the feat this week alongside Tim Rowan Robinson, chairman of TA Hotel Collection – the Suffolk hotel group – that operates Thorpeness Hotel and Golf Club.
The PGA Super 60’s is played at Thorpeness Hotel and Golf Club, Suffolk, from August 29-30 and is free to watch.
Thorpeness Hotel and Golf Club www.thorpeness.co.uk