Six years after it first opened, Centurion Club has developed into the epitome of a modern golf club, where its members enjoy first-class service and stunning clubhouse facilities to match the quality of its world-renowned championship course, writes Nick Bayly

The reasons for golf’s declining popularity are many and varied, but among those that encouraged the owners of the Centurion Club to set up shop on the outskirts of Hemel Hempstead in 2010 was golf’s failure to keep up to speed with the lifestyle demands of the modern member.

The lack of a genuine service culture, draconian dress codes, endless tee time restrictions, treating female members as second-class citizens, and a diminishing pride in the presentation of golf courses and clubhouses, many of them worn down by years of under-investment, gave the team behind Centurion hope that a club that dared to do something differently could not only survive, but positively thrive.

Located a few miles west of St Albans, and just a few minutes from junction 8 of the M1, Centurion has shaken up the traditional private golf club model by offering a genuinely five-star, members-only experience, while remaining both affordable, yet refreshingly unencumbered by the stuffy and elitist attitudes that many high-end private clubs insist on adhering to.

Representing a blueprint for how a golf club for the 21st century should be operated, Centurion has been open for the best part of six years now, and in that time has built up a 600-strong membership that is enjoying a fast-maturing golf course and the kind of facilities that you’d expect from a five-star hotel.

With that ethos, it will come as no surprise that you’ll find no club captains or green committees here, and you’ll certainly find no posters explaining the dress code (there isn’t one), and there is a refreshing absence of noticeboards. It’s access all areas, with not a ‘keep out’ sign in sight.

While the 18-hole golf course – more of which later – has been open from the beginning, as it were, the clubhouse, as is often the case in new builds, came later, with the impressive two-storey structure that spans the entire length of the large pond that guards the right-hand approach to the course’s closing hole, opening in 2016. The £5 million edifice is the icing on a particular appetising cake, the likes of which are no doubt being baked by the club’s expert team of chefs, who have turned the impressive ground-floor restaurant into a destination not just for golf club members, but for diners from all over the region. Saturday cream teas are a virtual sell-out, as are Sunday lunches, while Friday and Saturday nights always require a reservation to secure a table.

Michelin-starred Jeff Galvin, who is a member at the club, helped set up the restaurant, and although he is no longer directly involved, his ethos and commitment to quality remains very much intact. And while you can still get a damn fine bacon sandwich – on a toasted brioche bun, of course – in the relaxed surroundings of the upstairs sports bar before your round, downstairs in the more formal 80-cover dining room, the seasonally-changing menu offers a slightly more refined culinary experience.

It’s a clever part of the clubhouse’s design that it disguises its true purpose with such skill. All the golfing elements – the locker rooms and the golfer’s bar and lounge, are located upstairs, tucked away from the more public spaces, while the ground floor wouldn’t look out of place in a boutique hotel. Walk into the side entrance, and past the pro shop – which is more akin to a boutique emporium – and you’d be hard-pressed to know you’re in a golf club at all. There are no endless rows of wooden noticeboards and not a silver trophy in sight. It’s a light and airy space, that moves seamlessly from one area to the next, feeling intimate, yet spacious, and above all, relaxed.

Elsewhere within the building there are separate rooms for private dining, conference spaces, although only members and companies with connections to the club are allowed to host corporate golf days here. And while the main entrance at most clubhouses are often cluttered with a haphazard scattering of trolleys and golf bags, here, all of the accoutrements of golf, including a small buggy fleet, are hidden behind high stone walls – out of sight, yet close at hand.

The club’s co-founder and managing director is Scott Evans, a genial Scotsman who brings almost 30 years’ experience working in golf club management at the likes of Loch Lomond, Dubai Creek, Yearwood Lakes, and, most recently, Troon Golf Management, to the table, and he knows better than most what it takes to keep discerning golfers happy. “Our plan from the outset was to create a club that rivals and goes beyond the very best for its quality, while getting rid of the all the stuffiness and small-mindedness that permeates through many traditional members clubs. You won’t need a certain length of sock or type of trouser to play here, let alone a jacket, and we encourage all our members to bring their families and to treat it as their golfing home form home.”

Evans adds: “Our aim has always been to focus on providing the very best facilities for our members, and let the reputation and standing among the golfing community evolve. The challenge has been to create a quality product worthy of our location so close to central London, and to be considered one of the finest available.”

While the clubhouse is suitably impressive, the reputation of any golf club still quite rightly hangs on the quality of its golf course, and here is where the Centurion more than lives up to the hype. While many courses state their claim to fame on a handful of good holes, it’s as hard as it is unfair to single out any one hole at Centurion, given the quality and variety of the challenges on offer.

Measuring 7,195 yards from the back tees, which plays to a par of 72, the middle and forward men’s tees take it down to a more manageable 6,850 and 6,555 yards respectively. The layout begins in an attractive area of pine woodland on the western edge of the 250-acre site, where the opening five holes cut a green swathe through the tree line. A sweeping downhill right-to-left par five opens up proceedings nicely, before switching into a stunning par-three, where a raised green provides a tempting, if often elusive target.

This is followed by a superb 405-yard par four, which swings right to left, with a greedy bunker guarding the corner of the dog-leg. After the beautiful par-three fifth – a 160-yard downhiller to a flat green with little margin for error on all sides – the course opens out over more rolling terrain, although thanks to sizeable mounds between the fairways, a sense of individuality is maintained for almost every hole. The 450-yard sixth is a really testing par four, with a big drive required to bring a flag that is hidden behind a raised bank into play, while the ninth introduces the first of four significant water hazards, although the toughest of them is probably the 12th, a 400-yard par four with a pond fronting the putting surface to catch under-hit approaches.

The 190-yard 14th is as testing a par three as you’ll find, playing uphill all the way to a raised green that has trees back, right and left, and bunkers at the front, while the 150-yard 17th is another stunning short hole, with two trees standing like sentries behind the green, while water lurks to catch anything hit long and left.

The holes have all been given Latin names, such as Alma Mater, Pro Forma and Hydro, to reflect the Roman history of the local area, and the course closes with the aptly-named Ad Infinitum, a 545-yard par five whose green sits below the clubhouse. With the putting surface protected by a large lake bounded by a stone wall to the right, it’s a fitting finale to a thoroughly entertaining round that will test all parts of your game.

Prepared to tournament specifications, the course offers all year-round playability, with arguably some of the best putting surfaces to be found anywhere in the country. Built on sand, the bent grass surfaces are like carpets – fast, true and firm, yet receptive to the right kind of shot. Given its tour-standard quality it was perhaps fitting that the European Tour chose Centurion to stage the revolutionary GolfSixes event in 2017 and 2018, which not only introduced the golfing world to a faster, more exciting alternative to 72-hole stroke play tournaments, but also alerted the world to the quality of the venue, with many of the players that took part in the event coming away wanting a regular, conventional Tour event to be held at the club in the future.

That request has been met, in part, as next year the club will host one of the showpiece events in the women’s professional game, the UL International Crown. The biennial matchplay event, which is run by the LPGA Tour and managed by IMG, sees teams of four representing the top eight golfing nations in the world compete over four days of matches from August 27-30, 2020. It’s a real feather in Centurion’s cap, and promises to showcase the talents of the world’s best women players to a UK audience for the first time outside of the Women’s British Open.

For those that would like to enjoy their own piece of the action at Centurion, seven-day, corporate, business, and international memberships are offered, all of which are tailored to provide the most flexible options to suit the needs of the golfer, whether that be one who plays two or three times a week, or just once a month. Either way, being a member, or knowing one, will be the only way to access the course, as visitors can only play as a member’s guest.

“The different membership categories offer greater flexibility to suit each member’s lifestyle,” says Scott. “We want people to feel that it is their club, and they can come and go as they please. There are no tee times, no visitors, and the course will never be bunged up with endless inter-club matches or societies. We have created a club that is already renowned for its friendly atmosphere and outstanding standard of service. We want to create a distinct ‘wow’ factor which ensures that once you’ve visited the club you’ll never forget it.”

I, for one, certainly haven’t, and I believe they’ll be plenty of others out there who will agree with me once they’ve had a glimpse of the way they do things at Centurion.

For membership enquiries call 01442 510 520, email hello@centurionclub.co.uk, or visit www. centurionclub.co.uk.

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Home to two of England’s most picturesque parkland courses, and set against the backdrop of a grand stately home, the Brocket Hall Estate remains one of England’s finest golfing venues, whether you enjoy it as a member, a green fee visitor or a golf break guest

Like many golf clubs in post-Covid UK, Brocket Hall has enjoyed something of a boom over the last three years. While for some venues the surge in golf participation has served to add the icing to the top of an already well-baked cake, for Brocket Hall the renewed interest in golf club membership has provided something of a lifeline following a period of uncertainty and instability. 

Since emerging from the pandemic, the last 18 months has seen The Melbourne Club – as Brocket Hall Estate’s golf club element has been known since 2019 – enjoy significant growth, with the membership ranks rising from 400 to a new high of 950, and that comes in the face of the introduction of a £6,200 joining fee. Bookings for society and corporate days have also improved dramatically, with many of the golf events that were hosted in 2022 having already rebooked for 2023. And with the golf breaks and wedding and events market having also rebounded in spectacular fashion, the future is looking busier and brighter than it has in a long time at the Welwyn-based venue, which is located on a stunning 500-acre estate some five miles from St Albans and 20 miles from the centre of London.

Having played Brocket’s two courses – The Melbourne and The Palmerston – several times each over a decade ago, I was interested to come back and see how they had matured in that time. The former, which was designed by Peter Alliss and Clive Clark, is the older of the two, having first opened in 1992, and enjoys frontal views of the magnificent hall and features a course which criss-crosses over the River Lea no less than four times. Measuring 6,616 yards from the back tees, the par-72 Melbourne represents an enjoyable but thoroughly challenging test.

The aforementioned river is in play right from the off, waiting to catch anything struck too far to the right at the short par-4 first, while the par-3 second requires a full 170-yard carry directly across the water to a green which is protected by two giant willows on both sides. The wet stuff is back in action at the par-4 fourth, which requires a long drive to open up sight of the green, this time the other side of the river. The view from here, with the old bridge and weir in full flow, is a sight to behold. 

The course then moves away from the water. A short par-5 and mid-length par-3 follow before a fine short par-4 with small raised green at the 7th, which features treacherous bunkering. The 8th is a 90-degree dogleg with a fabulous approach over a valley before the front nine ends with a short downhill par-3 that sits right by the hall. 

After a quick stop at the halfway house, you get eased into the back nine with a gentle downhill par 5. But don’t get your hopes up as what follows is a brutal uphill par four, that, at 475 yards, only the biggest hitters will find in two. The course then heads back into the woods with a pair of cracking par fours followed by a 200-yard plus par-3. The 15th is another dogleg with the approach shot down the hill to the green on the waterside, while 16th, Waterfall, is another breathtaking holes, which is in effect a reverse of the fourth, requiring a 170-yard second shot over the water, again in sight of the bridge and weir. A short uphill par 4, the 17th, with its green surrounded by a sand-filled moat gives little warning as to what’s to follow for the final hole.

Standing on top of the hill you look straight down at the mighty Brocket Hall, the green in the distance on the far side of the imposing waterway. Follow the winding fairway or boom a drive over the scrub – if you find the short stuff the ball will run down leaving you to decide if to lay up or go for it in two. Most – including me – chicken out, but that still leaves a 140-yard carry over the water to a green that slopes from back to front. Find the putting surface and then enjoy the ride on the quirky, rope-drawn ferry that transports you effortlessly across the water to the safety of dry land on the other side. 

All in all, it’s a memorable round – indeed, better than I remembered ¬– with an intriguing mix of holes that demand your respect and attention at every turn. What was just as impressive was the conditioning, with the greens running as smoothly as the billiard table that no doubt adorns the hall’s games room, while the fairways were also in tremendous shape, without a puddle or damp patch in sight, despite a month’s worth of rain falling in the days leading up to my round. A bunker renovation programme is next on the agenda, and that will only serve to further elevate what is already an elevated experience. 

With another course still to play, it seemed only sensible to make a two-day trip of it and stay at Brocket Hall’s excellent Melbourne Lodge, a converted Georgian coach house which offers 16 luxury en-suite rooms within a pitching wedge of the first tee on both layouts. Generously proportioned and grandly decorated, the rooms are both comfortable and suitably over the top, with ornate furnishings and vast oil paintings adding to the feeling that you’re a guest at an Edwardian shooting party. 

Guests can take their meals in the clubhouse’s excellent Watershyppes brasserie, while from the end of March next year they will also be able to indulge their tastebuds in the estate’s high-end restaurant, Auberge du Lac, which, as its name suggests, enjoys a stunning waterside location and is reopening to members and guests next Spring. Judging by the menu I was served at one of the pop-up nights in the run up to reopening, members and local diners are in for a treat, with a seven-course tasting menu curated by head chef John Barber easily up to Michelin standards, and certainly providing a suitably elevated dining experience that sits alongside Brocket’s other five-star facilities.

After a restful night’s sleep and a hearty breakfast I was ready to tackle Brocket’s second course, the par-73 Palmerston. Unlike the Melbourne, the River Lea doesn’t come into play on this fine course. Instead, there’s bold bunkering to contend with and avenues of trees. Course architects Donald Steel and Martin Ebert have created a strategic course where the golfer is presented with options. Central bunkers divide the third fairway, while the fourth tempts big hitters to drive left, over a small hollow and across the corner of the dogleg.

The short par-5 9th is also tempting to attack in two shots, but cleverly positioned greenside bunkers await anything but the best struck approach shot. Your approach shot on the par-4 12th must negotiate a chalk face which lies some 100 yards from the green. This really is a delightful hole, which requires pinpoint accuracy from the tee. The mid-part of the round is laid out on more open country, before returning to more tree-lined part for the closing stretch, where the 15th and 16th rival any on the course. All in all, the Palmerston offers a well-balanced design that provides a perfect foil to the drama of the Melbourne, and combined are certainly among the best 36 holes of parkland golf to be enjoyed anywhere the country.

A review of the golf facilities is incomplete without a mention of Brocket’s tour-standard practice facilities, which include a full-length driving range, chipping and bunker area, a practice putting green and a six-hole par-3 academy course. And with an indoor studio and a team of highly qualified PGA Professionals on hand, there really is no excuse not to up your game here.

So, whether you’re looking for a new golfing home from home, or simply somewhere to enjoy a slice of golfing heaven for a day or two in one of England’s most beautiful spots, Brocket Hall is ready and waiting.

STAY & PLAY AT BROCKET HALL
Golf break packages, including a round on the Melbourne and Palmerston course, overnight accommodation in the Melbourne Lodge and a full English breakfast, start from £282pp, with one-round packages available from £190pp.
For details of the latest golf breaks, membership enquiries and tee time bookings, please visit www.brocket-hall.co.uk, email membership@brocket-hall.co.uk, or call 01707 368700.

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