Harry Shapland Colt was a legendary golf course designer. His designs included Wentworth, Sunningdale, The Berkshire, Muirfield, Royal Portrush, Royal Liverpool and many, many more. He personally designed over 110 golf courses and, with his esteemed partners, was involved in the creation of over 300 courses; nearly all of them are still in play and some of them are true classics.
Colt was the original course designer of Canterbury Golf Club. Despite not having access to modern course construction equipment, he was able to fashion a charming and interesting layout in a parkland setting, and it is not surprising that the course is still very popular to this day.
The par-three 2nd (photo credit Andy Hiseman)
Canterbury Golf Club opened in 1927 on 160 acres of land leased from the War Office, with the land being later purchased by the club from the Ministry of Defence, when the adjoining Howe Barracks was closed in 2015.
Over subsequent years, the original heathland nature of the course has been altered considerably, with the emergence of huge expanses of trees, the majority of them self-sown. The resulting mature woodland, with its carpet of bluebells in spring and wide variety of wildlife all year round, make this a wonderful place to play golf. Since then, heavy investment has seen the course developed and improved; a long-term project that is still ongoing.
The 12th green at Canterbury (photo credit Andy Hiseman)
The course is 6,287 yards off the white tees with a par of 71, and is a mix of open par-five holes, tight par-fours and challenging par-threes. It has been selected as the venue for numerous representative matches at county, inter-county and national level.
Membership currently costs £1675 for full 7-day membership, which includes use of the course and practice facilities, reduced rates at the driving range, a swipe card providing a discount on bar drinks and snacks, and an arrangement to play a large number of local courses at a reduced rate.
There are a range of membership categories available and they can help identify the best one to suit your personal circumstances: they have student, age-related (21-35 years), country and overseas membership categories.
Canterbury was one of the first clubs to introduce an Associate Membership category, which allows greater flexibility without the constraint of traditional membership and has proved very popular. More recently, they launched a Second Club membership, which is designed for those golfers who are already full members of another club but enjoy playing at Canterbury on a reasonably regular basis.
The 18th hole (photo credit Andy Hiseman)
One of the interesting aspects of the club at Canterbury is that despite being a private members’ club, it also operates a commercial golf range immediately adjacent to the golf club site. This not only brings in very useful revenue, but it also provides first class practice facilities for both the members and local residents who can take advantage of an excellent floodlit golf range, complete with ball tracking technology from Toptracer and good short game facilities. In order to cope with the extra demand, the range has been extended with a very smart lightweight canvas structure, which provides additional covered bays.
The ball prices vary according to membership status: members’ rates start from £3 for 30 balls to £9 for 90, whereas non-members’ rates are £4.25 to £11.50. There is an Academy Membership on offer for just £100 a year, which includes range ball discounts, £50 ball credit, one free lesson, 10% off food and beverages, and members’ guest rate green fees – so all-in-all a great deal.
The clubhouse is warm and welcoming and provides excellent food and drink for all visitors, with an excellent view down the 18th fairway. There is a large dining room and a wonderful sunny patio for golfers to enjoy before and after their round.
The clubhouse has fabulous views across the course (photo credit Andy Hiseman)
There is a traditional professional shop based close to the first tee at the club, with also a satellite shop at the golf range. Both provide excellent service and a range of golf equipment for all tastes. The team of qualified professionals are on hand to provide advice and help with choosing the clubs that will suit players of all ages and all standards, and they specialise in individual custom fitting.
Lessons are provided by head professional Aaron Galbraith, along with PGA pros Fred Dores and Richard Wallis. Maxine Burton – previously a European Tour winner – also provides tuition.
Roger Hyder has been involved with the club since 2014. Golf Features caught up with him recently to find out more.
Golf Features: How did you first become involved at Canterbury?
Roger Hyder: In 2013, the club was offered the opportunity to buy the freehold of the site by the Ministry of Defence. The MOD were looking to simplify their estate and offered the club an excellent deal. They had some funds, but needed a reasonably hefty loan from a bank, who rightly insisted that they had some commercial experience for running the course. Luckily, I was selected for the role, initially as a consultant and then for the last 12 years as general manager.
Golf Features: What have been the biggest challenges you’ve had in that period?
Roger Hyder: It is fair to say that when I arrived the club was not run on a commercial footing and in order to satisfy the bank, and also to drive the quality of the whole establishment up, we had to make some substantial changes. Membership rates rose, and visitors and societies were made welcome. All of these changes are fairly obvious now, but implementing some of them was a little bit more difficult at times. We have also had to face some challenging climatic conditions which have been particularly hard this year, but like all things can be accommodated for with a clear strategic plan.
Golf Features: Did you have much help from the club and its officers?
Roger Hyder: I was very fortunate in having the complete backing of some far-sighted chairs and board members. These included Alison Kingston, who was the first woman to be a club chairman in Kent. Steve Eeles followed her, and our current chairman is Peter Cheney – all of whom have provided excellent leadership and guidance. They all helped to forge a vision of high quality for the future and made it far easier to make progressive changes, which has taken us into the top 135 courses in the UK and to be ranked the 12th best course in Kent by Golf World.
Golf Features: Did you have any problems along the way?
Roger Hyder: A major issue that we had to deal with was Covid. Despite there being an increase in the desire to play golf, the operational challenges at Canterbury were quite complex during that period. The course and complex as a whole are making great progress, but it is without question that the Covid period set us back a little bit on our path.
Golf Features: And what about the future?
Roger Hyder: We have an excellent Harry Colt designed course, a great clubhouse, fantastic practice facilities and we are only 1 mile from the centre of Canterbury. We have all the ingredients to get better and better as a club, and also as a course. The various teams that we have in place to run the catering, the course and the professional services are all performing very well and I’m very pleased that we have such a buoyant membership, together with plenty of societies and visitors.
Canterbury Golf Club is a superb venue to visit – more details can be found on the website: Canterburygolfclub.co.uk
