Rye Golf Club East Sussex

Ah Rye! Many is the time that this has been voiced when mention of Rye triggers a passionate conversation amongst both members and guests. Whether playing on the fast fairways and true greens on an idyllic summer’s day, or the even faster winter time greens when putts barely stop downwind and down slope, the anticipation of what the next shot may bring is never missing.

It is often said of Rye that the most difficult shots are the second shots to the par 3 holes. This is not always true – it is occasionally the third and fourth shots that are more difficult! A mild breeze at Rye is when golfers have difficulty in standing firm. The experience of playing Rye is the key, and Golf World Magazine ranks it 25th in the World based on the whole experience, saying that “Rye is a dying breed, a place where old fashioned values are still respected, where foursomes is the game of choice……The course is a masterpiece and is a wonderful course to play in the winter, not least because it drains so well”.

The course rarely closes, conditions are always perfect underfoot, and each hole tells its own story as you will see in the other pages of this web site. Henry Longhurst selected the 4th at Rye as a par 4 in his perfect course. “I take the 4th at Rye at the time of the President’s Putter, with a perishing wind nearly blowing you off the high tee in the sandhills, but just enabling you to reach the edge of the green with – unlikely thought! – a perfect drive and a brassie”.

He also included the 5th hole in his course. “It shall go to one which possesses that quality which the architects call “indestructibility”, the power to survive changes in the ball and the weather and everything else – the ‘Pulpit’ at Rye, once the 8th, now the 5th. We play it with the same tremendous left-hand wind nearly blowing us off the tee, and the shot is a 4 iron. Interesting to note that this and the 5th at Mildenhall do not possess a single bunker between them”. (The Essential Henry Longhurst, edited by Chris Plumridge, Pan books 1990)