Westward Ho. Eastward Ho. The Glade. Hades. Paradise. The Whinney. Home Green. Redan. Most of the names are self-explanatory and speak of the charm to be found in the hallows of a club that is now 114 years old. But Redan? It’s the French word for a salient, a projection. A North Berwick member called John White-Melville, returning home form the Crimea, where he came across more than one or two redans, is credited with giving the title to his own course’s 6th hole. Clearly, the habit travelled south in time, finding its way to the Royal Norwich some years later. All of which digression might give the lie to the fact that when you talk of the Royal Norwich, you are talking old. 1893, to be precise and, although the course has been knocked about just a bit over the years, most famously by James Braid, stepping out onto the matured fairways and wonderfully stepped tees and greens brings with it a sense of privilege. The rich woodlands that fall about at either side will carry their own memories of Harry Vardon,  Braid and Walter Hagan and of the thousands of golfers, celebrated and anonymous, bad and good, who have played this magnificent course. A course which, for many years, had no less a person than the King of England as its patron. The Royal Norwich is indeed jus that. Royal. Very royal indeed.

Royal Norwich Golf Club.

Drayton High Road, Hellesdon, Norwich, NR6 5AH

01603 429 928