“Surprise is the greatest gift which life can grant us.”Boris Pasternak
I didn’t know what to expect. It had been suggested to me by a friend, Helen, whose previous recommendation had proved a wonderful surprise, and it was a convenient pit-stop on my return from the Kent coast. But I didn’t know there was even a course in this district, let alone that it was the work of Harry Shapland Colt.
My preparation consisted of the input of a postcode and a degree of trust, and when the former showed just how close the course is to that ancient, historic relic that is Canterbury, I was surprised that I had been ignorant of it for this long, for many afternoons have been spent strolling on those nearby cobbles. So Pam and I agree a time, and meet in the clubhouse and - as we do time after time - enjoy that delicious taste of suspense before inspecting paths we’ve not trodden before.
This gift of surprise begins as the first fairway rolls us over a vast hill, and down towards a well-protected green. First impressions are important, and this is a strong one, not least because it pulls us up onto a ridge where the wind can cool us a little. The next is a superb short hole, where Colt’s false front politely rejects our balls for what must be the millionth time in the last ninety-eight years. At the third, we’ve a marker to aim our drives at, but such simplicity is dangerous, for - as on many of Canterbury’s holes - the architect has used the natural camber of the land to test the player’s grey matter.
As the front nine progresses, some themes become clear for us both. Canterbury is a masterpiece of design, the holes crafted into the landscape, and much of the challenge is centred around angles. The bunkering is brilliant but sparse - intended to complement rather than over-power the integrity of Colt’s thinking. By the turn, I am utterly lost in terms of where we are on this vast property, and bemused at how even a master architect could cover this ground in the first place, let alone create such a coherent feel through this rambling adventure.
Hole after hole feels like it could be plucked from or transported to the cousins I know well - the Wentworth’s and Swinley’s of this world - and yet, though many of those are themselves built on undulating plots, somehow the terrain here is on a grander scale. A more difficult routing to imagine, I suspect. The par three eleventh is steep and gorgeous, and the bank on the right helpful, then at the next the gentle contours pull everything left, and I flounder in yet another marvellous, grassy hollow.
The sand-free, uphill fourteenth is barely mentioned anywhere, yet it is to me a thrilling hole - the sort that must frustrate and occasionally elate the regular - with the green perched at the top of a demanding climb across rumpled ground. Somehow, I feel like Colt was flexing his muscles here, in the face of such a challenging site. In places, including in some sense the course’s delightful presentation, it feels like the sort of escapade Braid used to drape over mountainous slopes, yet some holes feel as if Abercromby’s confident swagger is at work. The restraint of the bunkering whispers of Simpson, and yet - though Canterbury has a feel of its own - it is unmistakably Colt, and among his finest, perhaps.
The sixteenth has shades of New Zealand’s subtle eleventh in it, in the way the approach tickles everything left, then the seventeenth completes a fabulous set of par threes with a green carved into the bank, which positively bundles us both to the right. And we finish beneath the charming veranda with a fine pair of par fives to close, pitching up three glorious hours after we started.
Within a week, Pam has sent another friend this way, and now - fully a month later - I am still thinking of those fairways and certain gentle troughs, and wondering why on earth so few people speak of this place. It is a place of pilgrimage, Canterbury, so rich in history and antiquities, but this golf course is not out of step with the city it serves, and I am staggered anew at how broad and deep England’s golfing catalogue is.
I will be surprised if I don’t pass this way again, and soon…
