A Superb Hotel And Golf Course Near Tunbridge Wells

Dale Hill Hotel and Golf Club is located on the Kent and East Sussex borders between the villages of Flimwell and Ticehurst, just a mile off the A229. The hotel itself has 50 bedrooms, many of which are located on the south side overlooking the golf course and the surrounding Weald and providing stunning views. The hotel has comfortable lounges and bars, conference facilities, an air-conditioned gym, and a heated indoor swimming pool and sauna.

There are two 18 hole golf courses, The Old Course, and the Ian Woosnam course covering 350 acres of historic woodland and undulating hills. Woosnam himself says that the course he designed is challenging enough to test the pros, yet accessible to amateurs. Dale Hill has a driving range, two putting greens, a practice bunker, and a fleet of no less than 40 electric buggies to hire.

Green fees from November 1st to March 31st are £25 for a visitor, £20 for a member’s guest, and £20 for a visitor off-peak which is after mid-day. In summer there is a range of fees from £20 for a member’s guest either midweek or weekends, up to the list price of £45 midweek and £55 at the weekend. The club has a strict dress code and while guests are permitted to wear jeans and t-shirts in the clubhouse, they are not permitted in the Wealden Restaurant.

Read More Information To Visit - Dale Hill Hotel and Golf Club

Facilities available At Westerham Golf Club

Westerham Golf Club is in Valence Park which is on the Brasted Road heading west out of Westerham town centre in the direction of Reigate. This is a 6,270 yard par 72 course which is largely woodland and was opened in 1997. It offers amazing views over the North Kent Downs and the greens are all to USGA standards. There is full irrigation throughout which allows play all year round.

The course has beautiful tree-lined fairways and there are three water features including the devilishly positioned lake at the 9th. The club boasts that lasting memories of the course will “no doubt revolve around the ‘eye of the storm’, the 11th hole with daunting pine trees and bunkers protecting a small green.”

In addition to the course itself, Westerham offers a range of practice facilities. There is an 8 acre short game area, 60 yard green side bunker, a 60 x 30 yard chipping green, and two large pitching greens of 80 and 120 yards from purpose built grass tees. There is an 8-bay driving range of 10 acres, and indoor facilities include a GC2 simulator and video analysis.

Recently completed is the 9-hole Churchill Academy course which has been designed for beginners and on which both juniors and adults can hone their skills.

It includes bunkers, a lake, and wild “rough” areas which lend a degree of difficulty and which, according to the club, “will test golfers of all standards”. The Altonwood Group which runs the club has produced an extensive tuition programme along with its’ team of PGA qualified professionals and major golf organisations, including England Golf, to target new golfers and encourage people to take up the sport – including Juniors and Ladies. There is also a detailed programme for schools which meets the requirements of the National Curriculum. 

Why Join An Online Golf Club?

One of the best things about an online golf club is that it lets you talk golf whenever you wish, wherever you are, and at all those times when you can’t get out on a course and play as often as they would like.

There are so many advantages to an online golf club, not the least of which is a golf courses guide which many of them produce, and golf course reviews by other members. Golf course guides and reviews are exactly what you need if you want to play some different courses when you are going on holiday. Not only can you find reviews of courses by other members, but you can add your own reviews also in many of the online clubs.

Another advantage is that you can take part in the forums that they have. While some of them are merely social chit-chat, you will also be able to pick up tips and tricks, often from pros who are members also. 

Golf is a game that on the ‘face of it’ appears to be very straightforward: you hit a ball with a stick in order to get it into a small hole. However, as we all know, there is a myriad of things to overcome and it will take you some time and a lot of practice to master the game.

If you are a new player you will have all sorts of questions, such as how to go about getting a handicap.

Getting a golf handicap requires you to play 54 holes – ideally 3 rounds of 18 holes, but it can be a mix - and you need to be a member of a golf club affiliated to one of the eight unions which are part of the Council of National Golf Unions (CONGU). You then submit three or more cards signed by a “responsible” club member and the club will then allocate a handicap based on the best card.

However, if you are just looking to play ‘social golf’ you can use the handicap trackers provide by one of the many online golf clubs in the UK, often for free or as part of your annual membership fee.

Some Reasons To Join An Online Golf Club

There are only two types of people in this world. You are either a golfer or you are not. OK, fair enough, we golfers are actually in the minority, but nonetheless there are a good number of us. Some recent stats showed that over 1 million people in the UK had played a round of golf the previous week, and over 1.5 million had played in the previous month. That’s a lot more than people who play chess or scrabble, or even those who go fell running or paragliding. Anyway, what was that old saying? “A bad day on the golf course is better than a good day in the office!”

Those of us who play golf live and breathe the game. And with the coming of the internet we can now indulge ourselves even more with golf clubs online. What once used to be a hobby that we could only enjoy at the weekend, we can now be involved in every time we are anywhere near a laptop, mobile phone, or tablet – and we’ve all got mobile phones. We can chat away to our heart’s content in the virtual online club bar as much as we like.

However, there is a lot more than just chatting that you can do in an online golf club. Most of them will point you in the direction of new golf partners and golf societies in your area, which is great, because you can make new friends and find new courses to play. Finding new golf partners is not always easy, but online golf clubs usually have golf games posted where people are looking for partners to play on courses in your area. Of course, because it’s the internet, you will also find that there are games to play up and down the country, so if you happen to be going 100 miles away on business for a few days you may well be able to get in a round of golf while you do so as well.

Let’s say you are going on holiday, whether in the UK or abroad, and you are going to take your clubs with you. (What’s a holiday for if it’s not to play golf?). You are going to an area that you very well may not know, so you can ask in your online golf club if anyone has played at such and such a club that is in your holiday zone. You will almost certainly find that you get reviews of that course from other members who live there and have played it, or at least get pointed towards some reviews.

There are plenty more benefits to becoming a member of an online golf club, so if you are not already a member you would do well to join one.

Checking Out Golf Course Reviews For Your Holiday

If you are going away on holiday and want to play golf (what’s a holiday for, if it’s not to play golf?) you will want to check out the golf course reviews for the course or club to which you are going. If you are not already a member of an online golf club, now would be a good time to join one as you will usually find that they have a golf courses guide and lots of reviews from other members.

However, there are plenty of sources online which have extensive golf course directories covering the whole of the UK, and some 40,000 courses worldwide, along with many independent reviews. So, for instance, if you are going to Norfolk in the UK, you can simply click on that county in the listings in an online golf club and up comes a list of every course together with a price guide and possibly a star rating.

In many cases you can then just click on the name of a club that interests you and up will come its’ details including address and phone number along with the price of a round midweek and weekends, its’ website address, and a link to book tee times. You may also find an in-depth review of many courses by one of the members of an online golf club.

However, becoming a member of an online golf club gives you another advantage because you can talk directly to other members in the forums. It’s all well and good having the views of someone who has played a course, but you may want to ask questions about the facilities, the pro shop, or any one of another dozen things.

You can also arrange games and matches with other members. Online golf clubs give you a place where you can do this and everything else except, actually play golf, but they point you in the right directions with that as well since that’s why we are all here – to play!

Join an Online Golf Club To Find Open Golf Competitions

Open golf competitions are a great way to find new friends and play new courses, and one of the best ways of finding them is to join one of the online golf clubs. Many of these will have information on games that people are promoting and inviting others to take part. You will often find that there are games available at a time to suit you and in many cases not very far away from where you live. This gives you the chance to play courses that you otherwise would never have thought of, or that may be restricted to their members and guests only.

It is always fun to play a new course as there are no bad memories of quadruple bogeys or missed fairways, and the course is new and exciting. The fact is that most people play well on a new course, perhaps because they sub-consciously know that they need to play at their best. However, there are a few tips to be had by reading fellow members course reviews before you play. You can see photos of the course including the signature hole and check out the Stroke index/difficulty factor.

When you arrive at the open event, it is always worthwhile spending some time on the putting green to get a feel for the speed of the greens. Start with short putts and then increase the distance.

If you use a online golf club like thesocialgolfer.com, you can also review other members scorecards that have been posted on the site to see which holes may be the trickiest to navigate. So, no longer do you have to scour the web for Open golf events, just join an established and well like online golf club, new courses are always fun so there is no need to feel stressed.

The Benefits of An Online Golf Club

To some people the idea of an online golf club may seem somewhat strange because you can’t play golf online. Well, even that is not strictly true because you can play simulated golf online, and some websites let you play on actual named courses. However, sitting at your laptop all day doesn’t have quite the same appeal as getting out on the course with a set of clubs and doing it for real.

As such, the last few years has seen a growth in online golf clubs. These can provide you with all sorts of entertainment, tips, forums, golf societies, and above all may give you links to people wishing to play in your area or clubs in your locality that you may want to try.

You may find that some online golf clubs have a golf courses guide to clubs in your area, and reviews by other members. It is one thing visiting the website of a club where it will tell you how wonderful their course is, how superb the food in their restaurant is, and more. Of course it will. But reviews from people who have been to a course, played it, and can tell you an awful lot more than club website and are of course completely independent.

Furthermore, you may also get tips from fellow members on how to play a certain hole, or possibly how not to, especially if they have managed to get into trouble on it.

Another possibility with an online golf club is discounts from partner clubs on their green fees.

We all like a discount, and some online clubs have arrangements for discounts for their members at affiliated traditional clubs with which they have teamed up.

From the golf club’s point of view, they will get extra income, and from the online club member’s side you get to play a round for less. Everybody wins.