Monmouthshire Golf Club

Overview: Monmouthshire Golf Club is an 18-hole parkland course at Llanfoist near Abergavenny, set in the Usk Valley with views toward the Blorenge, Sugar Loaf and Skirrid mountains. The landscape is strongly geological: glacial action hollowed the Blorenge, steepened the valley and deposited free-draining sands and gravels that give the course its natural movement. That underlying ground helps explain the variety of the fairways and the sense that the holes belong to the hillside rather than being imposed on a flat site. The surrounding wooded countryside and mountain skyline remain central to the experience.

History: The club was founded in 1892, but the club's James Braid page distinguishes that early history from the present 18-hole course, which it says officially opened on 15 April 1938. James Braid designed the current course, adding a clear architectural identity to a site whose physical character had already been shaped over thousands of years. The clubhouse also stands on or close to the site of Beilu Du, a medieval house associated with the history of Abergavenny and the surrounding county.

Did You Know? The mountain called Sugar Loaf received its English name because its cone-shaped form resembles the blocks of sugar once imported into Wales. The nearby Skirrid Fawr is sometimes called a holy mountain, and the club's history explains that its dramatic clefts were created by geological landslips rather than by the local legend attached to the landscape.