Hidden GemGreat Value

Bull Bay Golf Club

Amlwch, Isle of Anglesey · Designed by Herbert Fowler, with Tom Simpson (1913) · Est. 1913

Bull Bay opened in August 1913, built by the Marquis of Anglesey on his own land in the hope of turning this stretch of the island's north coast into a holiday resort — tennis courts and a bowling green went up alongside. He engaged Herbert Fowler of Walton Heath, in a rare collaboration with Tom Simpson, and the two produced something unusual: a course that, when it opened, had not a single artificial bunker. Fowler simply used the natural undulations, the rock and the gorse to shape and separate the holes.

The most northerly course in Wales, Bull Bay is a wild, heathery, clifftop heath laid over rocky ground above the bay, with the Irish Sea filling the horizon. It was extended to eighteen holes in 1923 and plays to par 70. It asks for blind shots and clever positioning rather than brute length, and it rewards the imagination.

The welcome is warm, the value is exceptional, and the setting — on the Anglesey Coast Path near Amlwch, looking out to sea — is as good as inexpensive golf gets in Britain.

Holes worth knowing

1The clifftop heath holes above the bay — Fowler routed the course over natural rock and gorse with the Irish Sea filling the horizon; wild, natural golf.
2The blind carries over rock and gorse — with no artificial bunkers, it is the outcrops, the slopes and the whin that defend; position and imagination beat power here.

Highlights

The most northerly course in Wales
Rare Herbert Fowler & Tom Simpson design (1913)
Originally built without a single artificial bunker
Wild clifftop heath and exceptional value

Good to know

→Bull Bay is the most northerly course in Wales; on a clear day the views reach across the Irish Sea towards the Isle of Man.
→It was originally built without a single artificial bunker — the gorse and the rock do the defending, so keep it straight and use the natural contours.
→The old copper port of Amlwch and Parys Mountain — a lunar-looking 18th-century copper-mining landscape — are close by and genuinely fascinating to explore.
→Anglesey is a treasury of coast and history: Beaumaris Castle (a UNESCO site), the South Stack lighthouse, and the village with the longest name in Europe are all within reach.
→It sits on the Anglesey Coast Path near Amlwch; pair it with Holyhead for an Anglesey double, or with Conwy and North Wales on the mainland.