Hunstanton Golf Club - England

Hunstanton and Brancaster are the two outstanding links courses of northeast England, located on the Norfolk coast seven miles apart from one another. Hunstanton had its origin in 1891 when the club's first president, Hamon le Strange, paid £30 for George Fernie of Troon to layout nine holes. Additional funds were raised and, four years later, nine more holes were added. James Braid visited a few years later and "left a track of cunning bunkers behind him." Over the years, further revisions were made to create what today is a links of championship caliber. The course is divided by a natural grandstand of dunes between the  shores of the Wash and the River Hun, described by Bernard Darwin as "a name of ominous sound, into which we may slice on the way out if we are not careful." The lower lying, marshy holes on the front nine run along the inland side, skirting the banks of the little river, while the back nine parades along the higher ground by the North Sea coastline.

Royal West Norfolk Golf Club - England

Royal West Norfolk, better known as Brancaster, is often compared with Hunstanton, for they are the two superb links of East Anglia. Brancaster is the more uneven, old-fashioned, and romantic of the two, laid out on the narrow strip of land between the dunes of the Norfolk coast that run down to the harbor of Brancaster Staithe and the saltmarsh called Mow Creek. The eighth and ninth holes are the heart and soul of the course, renowned for what Bernard Darwin termed their "overpowering lonely gorgeousness." Both holes leapfrog with forced carries across the marsh, with a particularly menacing example of the many deep, sleepered bunkers strewn along the course guarding the ninth green. During unusually high tides, the marsh floods and the clubhouse is cut off from the rest of the course. With its haunting beauty, Brancaster has changed little over the years, and its distinguishing features remain, as Horace Hutchinson, the first great golf writer and captain of the club wrote in 1892: "the absence of all artificiality and the great variety to be found in the holes."