Rob Rees, the Arb’s roving Golf Correspondent, discovers there’s world-class luxury golf much nearer to home…
I went to Berkshire for 24 hours expecting horses, hedge funds and people called Tarquin. Instead I found Herbert Fowler golf, two seriously good country-house hotels, Danny Pecorelli’s particular version of English luxury and a clubhouse lunch fine enough to make flying to Continental Europe for a golf weekend seem almost insane.
Berkshire is London’s affluent western fringe: Ascot, private schools, huge houses behind large gates and various royals. It is also home to two of Danny Pecorelli’s best hotels and one of England’s most interesting clubs.
The Royal Berkshire hotel in Sunninghill was built in 1705 for the Churchill family. Today it is part of Pecorelli’s Exclusive Collection, the independent hotel group his father Giuseppe started in 1981 when he bought Pennyhill Park.
Danny joined after training at The Savoy and became managing director in 1997. His influence is obvious. These are individual, family-owned country-house hotels rather than versions of the same cookie-cutter corporate product.
The Royal Berkshire has 66 recently refurbished rooms across the old house and newer wing, set in 15 acres. It is traditional without being stuffy. Then there is The Berkshire Golf Club, which I hadn’t played for more than 20 years, though I retain strong memories of a fabulous 36-hole day.
Founded in 1928 on Crown Estate land, the club has two Herbert Fowler courses, Red and Blue, laid out across classic heathland. Fowler also designed Walton Heath, Ganton, Royal Lytham & St Annes and Lindrick, among other masterpieces.
He was an architect of the highest pedigree, particularly on heathland with its pine, heather, sandy soil and natural contours. He was central to the Edwardian golf-course boom in Berkshire and Surrey as London wealth spread to the shires. With peers such as Harry Colt, Alister MacKenzie, Tom Simpson and James Braid, there were few finer designers anywhere in the world. Although heathland is a British landscape, sand, pine and a similar style of golf can be found in the US at Pinehurst No. 2 in North Carolina and Pine Valley in New Jersey.
I played the Red course, the marginally more famous layout. Its unusual 6-6-6 routing — six par threes, six par fours and six par fives — makes it unique. The Blue is the sterner test, but you could play the Red every day without getting bored. Both courses feature in the current UK and Ireland Top 100.
The Berkshire is also a reminder that great golf does not have to mean Scotland, Ireland or a European resort. Heathland golf is not dissimilar to vaunted links golf. The tight turf, rolling fairways and running golf require the same cunning, course management and nous – usually tree-lined rather than the unnavigable dunes and rough of links.
Give a great architect like Fowler exceptional land, leave him alone and provide a clubhouse where the day feels as enjoyable after the 18th as before the first tee**, and you have the formula**. The clubhouse matters here.
The Berkshire has retained something many clubs have lost: proper clubhouse culture. The building is understated, with an old-school locker room, bar, dining room and terrace overlooking the Blue’s first.
Then there is the carvery.
Served Tuesday to Friday, it has become Berkshire folklore. It is what I remember most from my previous visit. A bit ‘School Dinners’ – soup, roast meat of all denominations, lashings of hot pudding, proper service, drinks and no particular hurry. Jackets and ties are required in the main dining room.
It is formal, but not precious. Sit on the terrace and you get one of the best views: golfers confronting that first Blue hole, discovering that a beautiful heathland par three can also be a reminder that golf can be a cruel game.
The Berkshire feels like a club first and luxury experience second. That is precisely why it works. Foreign guests would find it quirky. One member neatly contrasted it with its famous Sunningdale neighbour.
‘We get about 30 members signing up to the monthly medal out of our 700 members. Competition isn’t really part of the scene here. Here we are gentlemen desperately trying to be sportsmen. At Sunningdale it’s very much sportsmen trying to be gentlemen!’
Behind my game was a group of 20 Harrovians on their midweek golf outing with the school’s Master of Golf. It’s that sort of urbane golf club.
Then to Pennyhill Park, near Bagshot – just over the Surrey border – for an entirely different version of English luxury. Giuseppe Pecorelli bought the estate in 1981, making it the starting point for what became much-respected Exclusive Collection. The sprawling 19th-century house sits in 120 acres on the edge of Swinley Forest.
Its defining chapter came through England rugby – installing a full-size pitch in 2003 – and the development of its spa. The sizeable wellness operation is central to the hotel rather than an amenity bolted onto it. Pennyhill is bigger and more resort-like than the Royal Berkshire. It is where you go when the spa and dining options are as important as the bed.
Together, they make a classy base for a luxury golf break.
The Berkshire is close enough to London to make this a realistic business trip. Finish the morning meeting in London, eat a proper club lunch, play one of Fowler’s heathland courses, retreat to Pennyhill Park for the spa and be back in the office the next day.
We enjoyed the visit as guests of Experience Golf, which has longstanding relationships with some of Britain and Ireland’s most protected clubs. Sunningdale, Walton Heath, Wentworth, Hankley Common, The Berkshire, Swinley Forest and the 3Ws (Woking, West Hill & Worplesdon) are not courses most golfers can simply book.
The company arranges access, bespoke transport and itineraries around member-protected courses, pairing them with luxury hotels. Sam, our driver, was an engaging host – and a good 6-handicap golfer too. Experience Golf removes the logistical nonsense while prioritising what matters: chasing that white ball around renowned golfing land and enjoying the 19th holes.
And that is the point.
British golf is not just about the famous links. There is an iconic golfing landscape on London’s doorstep: fast-running heathland, pine and heather, sandy fairways and courses shaped by the finest architects the game has ever produced.
Add two very different country-house hotels, a clubhouse that still understands lunch and a golf culture that remains pleasingly eccentric, and Berkshire starts to look rather more interesting than its formal regal reputation. And thankfully there was no sign of that bloke Tarquin!
For more information about The Berkshire Golf Club, please visit www.theberkshire.co.uk. Details of Experience Golf can be found at www.theexperiencegolf.com, and for more information of the Exclusive Collection, including other properties in the portfolio, please visit www.exclusive.co.uk.
