Review: Royal Manchester Golf Links (Part 2)

It's time for the back nine at Royal Manchester, here's the front if you haven't seen it yet.

The tenth hole is another medium-length par 4, and it presents the player with the classic strategic dilemma. The closer you get to the fairway bunker on the right, the better angle you'll have to attack the green, which is guarded by a bunker to the left. Do it right and you'll have a good chance at a birdie. All in all, a very solid hole, if not a particularly revolutionary one.

The tenth hole.

This is a good place to approach the tenth green.

The eleventh hole is a medium-length par 3 playing over a shallow valley to a green defended on three sides by bunkers. If you can be below the hole, that is a big advantage, this green slopes pretty sharply from back to front.

The eleventh hole.

The twelfth hole is, if you're playing the blue/white tees, the longest hole on the golf course at 540 yards. If you're going to miss this fairway, miss it right, the mounding is very significant and the grass is cut short enough that golf balls are pretty findable. Thick jungle runs the entire way down the left side of the hole. If you're going for the green in two, a fade is going to be the better shot, and lay-ups are best hit from the left side of the fairway. The green is best approached from the left side.

The twelfth hole.

Don't go too far left on the second.

Approaching the twelfth green.

The thirteenth hole is the shortest par 4 at Royal Manchester at 350 yards. It's also the most well-bunkered hole here, with sand running down the right third of the hole up to the green. Those bunkers gradually eat away at the fairway, so the further you hit your drive, the less space you'll have to work with. You can lay back behind the sand, but you'll have a longer second shot than you'd probably want to have on such a short hole.

The thirteenth hole. Lots of sand to the right.

The thirteenth green.

The thirteenth green, with the eleventh in the background.

The fourteenth hole is a medium-length par 4 that doglegs pretty sharply to the left around a big fairway bunker. This is a narrow hole, so using a 3 wood or long iron is probably a good idea. The green is big and multitiered, and when the hole is on the back tier like it was when we played there, it's very difficult to get an approach all the way back, considering the proximity of both the tall fescue and thick forest beyond the green.

The rightmost stack is a pretty good place to aim your drive on 14.

The fourteenth green.

The fifteenth hole is a medium-length par 3 to a green with small bunkers in front and behind. As you can see from the picture, there are a fair number of trees around the green, and while they don't come into play, it's a noticeably different aesthetic at work here. This is the only hole on the course that doesn't have the tall fescue along the sides, and while there's nothing wrong with the hole itself, it feels very out of place.

The fifteenth hole, with its out-of-place trees.

The sixteenth hole is a 520 yard par 5, and this month's exciting addition to our running series: "Oh crap, we've run out of room on our golf course". You wouldn't expect it from a par 5, but that's how Royal Manchester does things. After you finish 15 you are taken down a long path through the woods to the sixteenth tee. A very long walk. We're talking several hundred yards. And guess what? The hole plays in the exact opposite direction we just walked, and the green is actually right next to the fifteenth tee. I took a look at the satellite view, and I'm very confident that this irritation could have been avoided if a par of 72 had been sacrificed. Keep 15 where it is, have 16 as a long par 4 running in the opposite direction as this 16 but keep it on the same corridor, extend 18 a bit to make it a short par 5, and connect 16 and 18 with a par 3. This is the only time the course is distinctly walker unfriendly, but it comes at the end of the round, so it really sticks in my mind.

Anyway, that's enough about hypothetical routing changes, let's look at the hole we actually got. Left is quite obviously a bad place to be, thought if you can get close to it, you will have a shorter second shot. Otherwise, it's a reachable par 5 with some significant greenside bunkering. I'm not sure if this green is actually the smallest one on the course, but it feels like it.

The sixteenth hole.

This is the last time you get to see the electric station.

The sixteenth green, small and flanked by bunkers.

Looking back down the sixteenth hole

The seventeenth hole is the longest par 4 on the golf course if you're playing from the tips, but is a more mild 391 yards from the blue/white tees. This is an interesting change of scenery. We haven't exactly been in the trees the past few holes, but trees have been in view, and even almost in play on a couple of occasions. And then you come to this hole, and there is literally nothing sticking up above the horizon. All you can see is this hole, set in a little bowl, framed by brown fescue. It's almost desolate in a way, though that's more unkind than I'd like it to be. There's one bunker, a fairway bunker that is quite easily avoided, and the entire hole plays uphill. The green is big and very undulating. It's tough, but not in an annoying sort of way.

The seventeenth hole. It's a very spartan view.

This picture looks like I was almost lying on the ground, but I'm pretty sure I wasn't.

The eighteenth hole is the longest par 4 on the golf course from the blue/white tees, and unfortunately, it is tough in an annoying sort of way. There's nothing too wrong with the drive, but much like the ninth, the second shot plays over a pond. Much like P.B. Dye, Royal Manchester suffers from lackluster conclusions to both nines, and at both courses, the reason is egregious and unnecessary water. It was bad at P.B. Dye, but it's even worse here. The ponds are in front of the green on both holes, and the ponds clash even more with the overall course aesthetic. At least P.B. Dye had ponds elsewhere on the course, Royal Manchester doesn't. As a hole itself, it's not the worst thing I've ever seen, but it doesn't fit with most of the course, and it's a terribly cliched way to end a round of golf.

The eighteenth hole.

The pond even has a fountain.

We may have ended on a harsh note here, but let there be no question: Royal Manchester is the best course I've played this year. By a wide margin. There was strategy and thought on a few holes, the greens were interesting, it was walkable, there were no trees or narrow fairways, it was a generally very solid golf course. And I will say, the course conditions were excellent. The course was running pretty well, and despite the large amounts of rain the Mid-Atlantic has gotten in the past few months, it was pretty dry and firm out there, and the long fescue was nice and brown.

I haven't even gotten to Royal Manchester's little secret: The value of a round is extremely good. To play at 12:30 PM on a Saturday, I paid $40 per person. That is extremely reasonable, and much less than I would expect to pay for a golf course of this caliber. This is a full-length, very well maintained "championship" golf course about halfway in between two reasonably large Pennsylvania towns, one of which is the state capital. The closest analogue I have to Royal Manchester that I've played is the Iron Forge course at Penn National. They're in similar environments, both aspire to be linkslike, both are similarly upscale, and both are in rural southern Pennsylvania. I won't get into a detailed analysis, but Royal Manchester is essentially always the cheaper option. Royal Manchester is a better course than the Iron Forge course, and it's more convenient to play for a larger number of people.

So, is Royal Manchester the 11th best public golf course in the country? Does it stand up to the hype Golf Advisor has given it? Uh, no. So if you do go there, don't expect anything spectacular. That's not necessarily a bad thing, like I said, up to this point it's the best course I've played this year. It was well-maintained and well-priced, interesting in a few spots, and the round took less than 4 hours. I'd definitely considering driving an hour and a half to play it again. Can't ask for more than that, right?