Hayling Golf Club

About the club

Owing to its unique geography, Hayling Island offers an oasis of links golf in a region on the coast outside Southampton to the east that otherwise lacks the conditions—estuaries, persistent sea breezes—for a true links course that is also one of the earliest course of any kind in southern Britain. J. H. Taylor reworked the original layout into much the form it takes today, though Tom Simpson introduced a few changes in the Interwar period. The result is a venerable ocean-side course of no treat length but of considerable strategy. As is frequently the case with Simpson's work, self-confident golfers will feel the urge to take risks, even in the face of potential bogeys. The course has one distinct advantage over others in the area, namely the fact that when southern Britain is afflicted by wintery weather, the warm seas surrounding Hayling Island fend off the frost and the snow.