Porthpean

Par 68s have a reputation they don't always deserve — written off as a step below "real" golf, when often they're simply a different kind of test. Porthpean, perched on the cliffs above St Austell Bay on the south Cornish coast, is very much the latter: a course shaped by its dramatic coastal setting rather than any shortage of ambition.

The views here are the kind that stop you mid-backswing. St Austell Bay stretches out below, the water catching whatever light Cornwall decides to offer that day — brilliant blue in summer, slate-grey and moody in winter. The course works with the natural contours of the headland, and the wind, which can arrive from almost any direction, becomes the great equalizer that par-68 skeptics tend to overlook.

St Austell sits at the heart of Cornwall's china clay country, an area with its own distinct industrial and coastal character, far enough from the tourist trail to feel genuinely local. Porthpean has the feel of a club that belongs to its community — unpretentious, scenic, and earning its difficulty honestly through terrain and elements rather than length.