Begin at the 'Biggin'

And why it proved the perfect place to start

The first thing to say about Newbiggin is obvious and it came to me this morning fresh from the experience of a round there. Never judge a book by its cover.

I don’t know about you, but I can struggle to find context and perspective the moment the ball drops into the final hole. I know if I’ve enjoyed it. I know if there are thoughts and ideas rushing around in my head waiting to be said, but how much the volume knob should be turned up? That isn’t so clear as it takes a moment for everything to sink in.

I knew as we came off the 18th green and strode up the 300-yard gravel path back to a distant clubhouse that there was the electricity of excitement circling around us.

We were tired, after 18 holes in hugely mixed weather, but spirits were high because what we thought might be a slow burner turned out to be quite the opposite. The course revealed itself to us as you might expect children, walking sensibly until they are out of sight, and then getting up to all sorts of mischief as they scamper about in the dunes.

I won’t use the word boring, but Newbiggin doesn’t look all that exciting when you turn up at the understated clubhouse, having driven through a grey town that feels like it’s best days are behind it.

You see a first tee playing out into dull flatlands. No patio encircling an 18th green and no immediately obvious putting green with colourful herbaceous border. There’s no ‘colour’ in this scene at all, just different shades of grey and there, standing centre back like a giant King’s throne surveying all, was an architectural abomination, the Lynemouth Power Station.

Pro shop, 1st tee, power station. It gets far, far better from here.

And to the left of the scene was a patch of rough common land fenced off by one of those white railings that you usually see on race courses. The type that have furlong markers dotted along their length. The field was full of yellow sprigs of ragwort, which raised the concern of my partner Sharon, because there was a pony tethered in the field and ragwort is poisonous to ponies/horses.

So all in all, not a very uplifting start, which actually delights me because thanks to this highly understated opening, the drama that was just round the corner would never have been as uplifting.

Newbiggin, the original nine designed by Willie Park Jnr (of St Andrews fame), turned out to be a course that we would revisit again in a heartbeat. You can see elements of St Andrews strewn over the holes that are in sight of the clubhouse. But ‘Don’t go right’ is helpful advice for the entirety of the journey, just like the Home of Golf.

I don’t want this article to ever become a shot-by-shot account of a round, but there were holes in the dunes that made you grip the club tighter in excitement not anxiety.
I grew to love the power station whose permanent presence became comforting rather than concerning. It gets so close you feel you could touch it and there are two hidden holes in the dunes that circle close to its parameter wall and arterial railway which delivers, not coal but wood. These two holes are ghost-like additions since they’ve not been used for over two years. Only when the course floods and Newbiggin rarely does that. Indeed, it stays open when most others fall foul of the winter wilderness.

Challenging, fun, quirky and fun. I’ve said fun twice because it is fun. Newbiggin is a place to play golf if you want a course that leaves you with a smile on your face. We absolutely loved it, plus, giving ourselves six shots each, we kicked off our Forgotten Coast travels with a 4&3 victory.

The 4th is a driveable par 4 with the Lynemouth power station in the background

I won’t always mention our scores, but it’s a game we always play when we tee it up in new places. A better ball battle against the course. A format that is fun and, as you might have deduced, fun is a favourite word of mine. I see it as the common denominator to everything. It’s why we’re here.

Newbiggin flies under the radar. It might not want to. It’d like to be named in the same breath as Bamburgh Castle or Dunstanburgh Castle, but it’s not.

“If our power station was a castle then it might be different,” said Colin Ferguson, the very amicable and helpful pro (he even lent us a buggy to race out to the far corner of the course to find the forgotten holes I’ve already mentioned).

And he’d be right. But for me, the power station didn’t put me off at all. Indeed, I started talking to it as I went round. “What d’ya think o’ that one,” after catching a drive just right on the 7th and seeing it bound over the springy links turf towards a green set perfectly in the dunescape below surrounded by pretty gorse.

Newbiggin was a perfect beginning.

What’s actually happening here is that I’m going to write a piece for the Today’s Golfer website. I’ve thought about this and, Substack apart, the internet is not really the place for large swathes of text, so instead the TG version of A Forgotten Coast is going to take the form of an awards night. Sharon and I, are going to discuss various awards like ‘best bunker’ and ‘toughest par 4’ and then announce them. We already started this process over a yellow curry in a Thai restaurant in Morpeth last night.