HPGC Winter Team Open - December

High Post Golf Club

Salisbury, Wiltshire, England

High Post Golf Club is an 18-hole downland course founded in 1922 and located at Great Durnford between Salisbury and Amesbury in Wiltshire, set on an elevated site that takes its name from an ancient gallows-pole. The course was designed by five-time Open Champion J.H. Taylor in collaboration with Fred G. Hawtree, one of more than a dozen courses produced by this partnership during the 1920s. It plays to a par of 70 over 6,305 yards, with a course rating of 70.7 and a slope of 128. There are only two par fives on the card, both on the front nine at the 2nd and 6th holes, and four par threes, the longest of which - the 183-yard 17th - plays to a semi-blind putting surface. The course is built on free-draining chalk downland, which gives it firm, fast-playing conditions and good year-round playability. The outward nine runs clockwise along the external boundaries of the site, while the inward half is more compact with several back-and-forth parallel holes. Taylor and Hawtree's design makes distinctive use of sculpted grassy hollows and disguised depressions around the greens, alongside 72 bunkers, to create strategic interest without heavy tree cover. Small trees and bushes frame many fairways, and the course is widely praised for the quality and subtlety of its putting surfaces. Exposure to wind on the open downland site adds an unpredictable element throughout the round. The 384-yard par-four 9th - a downhill drive to a fairway bending slightly right towards a back-to-front sloping green - was cited by the late Peter Alliss as one of his dream 18 holes. The club has hosted national junior competitions including the Carris Trophy in 1999 and the English Boys Open in 2008, both staged at the invitation of the English Golf Union. Golf Monthly has described the course as a hidden gem among downland layouts in southern England.