Golf in Mid Wales

Mid Wales is the wildest, emptiest and least-golfed part of the country — and one of the most rewarding for the traveller who ventures off the beaten track. It stretches from two storied Cardigan Bay links below southern Snowdonia to the high moorland and green valleys of inland Powys, all of it scenic, uncrowded and outstanding value. Nowhere in Britain is a great round cheaper or the roads quieter.

Aberdoveyis the course Bernard Darwin — the finest golf writer the game has produced, and the club's first captain — loved "best of all the courses in the world." It runs out and back along a narrow strip of duneland on the Dyfi estuary, with the famous blind par-3 "Cader" and a railway station right at the first tee. A little down the coast, Borth & Ynyslas is the oldest golf course in Wales, established in 1885 and redesigned by Harry Colt in 1947 — a wild, exposed links on a spit within the Dyfi National Nature Reserve, and a real collector's round.

Inland, two more courses reward the drive. Cradoc, on the northern edge of the Brecon Beacons near Brecon, is a beautiful upland parkland with sweeping views to Pen y Fan, the highest peak in southern Britain. And Llandrindod Wells is a rare high-moorland course — a Harry Vardon design from 1905 at around 1,100 feet, with huge skies and panoramic views across the mid-Wales hills. Both are gloriously scenic and cost a fraction of the coastal links.

Aberdyfi is the loveliest base for the coast — a harbour village of painted houses on the estuary, and one of the great golf-by-train destinations, since the Cambrian Coast line stops right at the links. For the inland courses, Brecon and the spa town of Llandrindod Wells make characterful bases in the heart of the country.

Aberdyfi & the coast

The Trefeddian Hotel, set above the links with big views over the Dyfi estuary, is the classic Aberdovey golf hotel; the Penhelig Arms down on the harbour is a cosier inn. Near Borth, Nanteos Mansion outside Aberystwyth is a fine Georgian country-house stay.

Powys

Around Brecon, Peterstone Court is a relaxed country-house hotel with valley views, and the Lake Country House & Spa at Llangammarch Wells is the grand retreat of the region; the Metropole in Llandrindod is a characterful Victorian spa hotel handy for that course.

The region's star kitchen is the Felin Fach Griffin, a celebrated country pub with rooms between Brecon and Hay-on-Wye. On the coast, the Penhelig Arms in Aberdyfi is the reliable estuary dinner-and-pint, and up in Machynlleth the daytime Number Twenty One is a favourite lunch stop between coast and hills.

Cadair Idris, the great mountain above Aberdovey, is one of Wales's finest walks, and the Cambrian Coast railway is a scenic journey in its own right. Inland from Aberystwyth, Devil's Bridge Falls and the Vale of Rheidol steam railway are a classic day out.

In Powys, the Elan Valley reservoirs near Rhayader are a spectacular drive, the Brecon Beaconsoffer the walk up Pen y Fan and one of Europe's finest dark-sky reserves, and Hay-on-Wye— the world-famous "town of books" and home of the Hay Festival — is an unmissable browse.

It pairs naturally with North Wales up the coast at Harlech, or see the best courses in Wales.