This unspoilt course 2 hours from Royal Birkdale deserves a lot of attention

For most of my adult life, I have been searching for the hidden gems of golf.

When I joined the GOLF ranking panel decades ago, that search was productive. Some of the world’s greatest lessons were hidden in plain sight. The National Golf Links of America hasn’t gotten the attention it deserves. North Berwick wasn’t even in the Top 100. Chicago Golf Club was admired by construction enthusiasts but hardly qualified as a household name.

That country has been greatly destroyed.

Over the past 30 years, golfers have become more sophisticated property buyers. Standards, books, websites, podcasts, social media and the ease of international travel have exposed golfers to good design in ways that were unimaginable when I first joined the panel. Information now travels faster. The spectacular course doesn’t stay a secret for long.

Or so I thought.

In May, while I was working on completing the Top 100 Golf Courses in the World, I embarked on two trips. One took me to the other side of England, where my son and I would cover nearly 1,000 miles a week, playing nine rounds over six days. One took me to some of Europe’s most remote golf destinations, including Lofoten Links in Norway and Ardfin on the Isle of Jura in Scotland.

I expected to be impressed.

I did not expect to be surprised.

The lesson that stayed in my mind long after the trip was over was no higher than the Arctic Ocean. It was only accessible by boat. It didn’t have crashing waves, cinematic vistas or famous Instagram photos.

Instead, it was an inland course in Nottinghamshire that welcomed a handful of North American visitors each year.

Its name is Hollinwell, or Notts.

During our travels around England, I heard many experienced golfers speak of Hollinwell with great respect but also with caution.

“It’s getting out of the way a little bit.”

The course is 130 kilometers northwest of London (and about 145 miles southeast of this week’s Open Championship venue, Royal Birkdale), in the countryside that gave birth to the legend of Robin Hood. Our rental car ride took two hours, mostly on the road. By the time we arrived at the club, the temperature had dropped significantly. But my excitement swelled as we turned onto the access road, which bisects the course, offering a glimpse of what’s to come, with three holes on the right and the rest on the left. Three holes on the right were added by Tom Williamson to the Willie Park Jr. course. which first opened in 1901. Williamson was the main champion at Notts for 54 years and competed in the Open Championship for almost as long, from 1897 to 1947.

We had set a time of 2 pm but we arrived an hour early and saw that the course looked deserted. Inside the small shop, we asked if it would be a problem to leave now, and we were told that if we hurry, we can leave before the team competition. So, we left. Hollinwell, like all clubs in the British Isles operates a tee time booking service accessible from its website. Back in the day, I remember writing handwritten letters to the secretaries of the top teams. Gone are those days.

As we stood on the 2nd tee, I understood why Williamson thought the course should be opened on that side of the fairway. The pit provides the first – and perhaps most surprising – encounter with the huge mound that plays out many times on the other side of the road. Depending on the placement of the tee shot, the second can be blind, or partially blind to the green that sits at the base of a large mound that defines one side of the fairway. It’s a remarkable hole, natural, and characteristic of a course that feels more found than built.

The par-4 4th, near the clubhouse, served as the first hole of the Park’s original design, and is a tough, longer-playing test than its yardage in prevailing winds. That reflects Notinwell himself, which was delivered in such a way that it has stood the test of time and the onslaught of technology.

The 7th is a great example of a stunning hole in the flat section of the area with heather to carry off the tee and a series of beautiful fairway buildings. In some places, the world is very impressive. Holes 10 to 17 use that area, connecting in various ways to the main dune. The 11th, a short par-4, goes a little too close to it; the par-3 13th, the best of a tough set of one-shotters, plays down; the 17th green and 18th tee nestle against it.

As we wrapped up our round, I couldn’t help but compare Nottinwell to our stops at Lofoten Links and Ardfin, two of the hardest courses to get to in Europe. If the subject sits in a beautiful place, as Lofoten or Ardfin do, it raises the question: Should beauty be counted in one’s assessment? I like to look at a golf hole and ask myself, if the hole at the end of the fall is at the edge of the woods would it still be embedded in our memory.

I loved my time at Ardfin but I couldn’t help but wonder: If it had the bounciness of the links, how much better would it have been? In Lofoten, I was amazed by the scenery around me, but the scenery was more of a spectacle than a lesson. At Hollinwell, the course itself was the star, and I was surprised that its brilliance hadn’t attracted more attention.

In the world of Instagram, for better or worse, we’re going to have a few hidden gems going forward. We will never see a country where the National, North Berwick and Chicago Golf Club are neglected the way they were 40 years ago.

But if you look hard enough, you can still find a place like Hollinwell. And thank goodness for that.