Page 72 - Rooftops

Our (golfing) friends
Away from the greens Ramside Hall boasts luxury bedrooms and a high tech spa and pool
While many holiday golfers see Scotland as the Holy Grail here’s a little word of advice. You can still head north and experience a warm welcome, and interesting courses on rolling countryside, without crossing the border.
Take the Ramside Hotel, just a mile or or so off the A1 and about 15 minutes from Durham. It can be a base for a short golfing break in the county or a stop-off en route to Caledonian destinations.
Our journey from Suffolk went smoothly so that, after an early start, we arrived just before noon to be greeted by the hotel’s golf sales manager Michael O’Brien. As we munched away at lunchtime snacks Michael talked us through the two courses on the site with
help from a ‘flyover’ hole-by-hole guide on a TV screen above our heads. To further arm us for the task ahead he invited us on a quick buggy trip around the fairways.
We took on the Prince Bishop course first, a par 72 measuring 6,851 yards from its championship tees with views of Durham Cathedral, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Water comes into play on 10 holes and there are nine doglegs on the card which demand good strategy and the ability to move the ball both ways if you are to score at your lowest.
The lovely looking 7th - a risk or reward par three over or around water to an elevated green (see main image above) is one of the stand-out holes but they all demand thought and precise shotmaking.
The stretched out Cathedral Course has been built on rolling countryside between the villages of Belmont and Pittington with ridges, becks and valleys featured on the middle part of the course.
The hilltop stages are pretty stark and open - perhaps accentuated on the cold and damp day we played. Yet it had enough intrigue to have us both wanting to go back and play it on a more clement day, in particular the stretch of holes from
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