The municipal
Ridgeline Municipal
Nineteen-sixties routing, generous fairways, greens that behave like a rumour. Holes seven through eleven run along a ridge with the valley sitting there being a valley, and after 2pm you can usually walk straight out. The best value round in the county, and it isn't close.
Play it: weekday afternoons, walking, half set. Stay after: the bench outside the pro shop, which faces west and has clearly been sat on by everyone who matters.
9 or 18 holes
Walking friendly
Flask: tolerated
The hilltop nine
Harlow Hill Nine
Built in 1921 with a hill, a budget, and no interest in sand. Not one bunker on the property: the defence is the terrain and a wind that arrives from three directions on the same hole. Nine holes in under two hours and a tiredness that eighteen flat holes can't produce.
Play it: first thing, before the hill gets hot. Stay after: one room, opens at seven, does toast, lets you sit on the bench until you feel like a person again.
9 holes only
No bunkers
Cash tin
The resort
Saltmarsh Links
Attached to a hotel with a spa and a lobby that smells like a candle called "Dune", which means the golf didn't have to be good. It is: the back nine runs through actual saltmarsh on ground nobody was allowed to move, and the 15th is 150 yards over water with nothing between you and a public failure.
Play it: shoulder season, midweek, late — when the rate drops and the light goes copper. Stay after: the deck with the heaters, and the gin drink with cucumber you will fail to reproduce.
18 holes
Book late afternoon
Bring balls
