Why Eryri?
The first thing you notice is the scale. Mountains that rise almost straight out of the sea, slate villages clinging to the valleys, and a castle at Harlech standing guard over the dunes where you'll tee off in the morning.
This corner of north Wales still feels properly remote. The roads wind through passes where the cloud sits low, the signs are in Welsh first, and the golf clubs along the coast have been here for well over a century without ever feeling the need to announce it. Royal St David's is a serious links in the shadow of the castle. Nefyn runs out along a headland with the sea on both sides and a pub on the beach below the fourteenth.
Between rounds there is mountain air to earn your dinner: a walk up into the hills, a boat out into Cardigan Bay, lamb from the fields you drove past that morning, and a fire in a stone inn when the weather comes in off the Irish Sea.
It is rugged, a little wild, and completely unlike anywhere else you've played.
Championship links nobody has told you about
Royal St David's is one of the finest links in Britain and sits, almost unvisited by American golfers, beneath a UNESCO World Heritage castle.
Golf on a headland
Nefyn's holes run out along a narrow finger of land with the Irish Sea on both sides - and a pub on the beach below the cliffs.
Scale you don't expect
Snowdonia's peaks rise straight out of the coastline. The drives between courses are as memorable as the golf itself.
Recommended courses
The golf in Eryri.
Royal St David's
A great British championship links: flat-looking, ferociously difficult, laid out between Harlech Castle, the dunes and the Snowdonia skyline.
Nefyn & District
Cliff-top golf along a headland, with the sea on nearly every side and one of the best halfway views in golf.
Porthmadog
Heathland out, pure links home - two entirely different golf courses inside one round.
Aberdovey
James Braid and Harry Colt in the dunes of the Dyfi estuary; a favourite southern addition to the route.
Beyond the golf
The other forty hours.
Harlech and Caernarfon castles
A private guided visit to Edward I's coastal fortresses - the reason this landscape looks the way it does.
Ffestiniog mountain railway
A narrow-gauge line into the slate mountains, taken slowly, with the group and a drink.
The Llŷn Peninsula coast
Beaches, coves and the walk out to Nefyn's beachfront pub, reachable only on foot.
Welsh produce and private dining
Salt-marsh lamb, Menai oysters and Welsh cheese, cooked for the group where you are staying.
Where you stay
A refined country house beneath the mountains
Exclusive-use, with mountain views, a proper dining room and the golf within twenty minutes.
A small coastal hotel with genuine Welsh character
Harlech or the Llŷn: well-run, well-fed and unmistakably of this place.
The vibe
Adventurous and elemental. Weather arrives from three directions, the clubs are run by volunteers who will talk to you for an hour, and dinner is the reward for a day outdoors.
Let's build your Eryri trip.
Tell us who's coming, roughly when, and what you'd hate to miss.