New St Mellion course opens

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Following a two-year £2 million investment, the new Kernow Course at St Mellion International Resort is now complete.

With the Kernow Course now open, St Mellion – owned and operated by award-winning golf group Crown Golf – once more merits a place in the upper tier of European 36-hole golf resorts.

With nine brand-new holes, and with nine of the best from the original Old Course, this comprehensive redevelopment is set to boost visitor numbers to Cornwall.

And the Par 70, 18-hole Kernow Course is now a wonderful complement to the mighty Nicklaus Signature Course, which also winds around St Mellion’s spectacular wooded valleys.

With stunning views and eight brand new USGA-spec greens, The Kernow Course has been created to give golfers a highly enjoyable experience.

It is longer than the resort’s original Old Course, with many new tees and hundreds of new trees. 250,000 tonnes of earth have been moved to provide a fresh golfing challenge which, while more benign than the Nicklaus, still has teeth of its own.

Standout holes include the new 1st, a tricky par 5, which demands an accurate first tee shot of the day, and the new 6th, the hardest on the course, which features an unusual approach to the green over a traditional ‘Cornish hedge’.

There is a brand-new sequence of holes to start the back nine, where the 10th, 11th and 12th, while relatively short, all ask golfers to make a series of exciting risk-and-reward decisions.

But not all is brand new – the picturesque all-or-nothing par 3 14th hole, an old favourite featuring a drop shot across a lake, still adds its charm to the latter part of the round.

Work began in May 2008, with golf course constructors European Golf Services working closely throughout the process with St Mellion’s Course Manager Mike Bush to ensure the new course opened in pristine condition.

St Mellion’s Golf Operations Manager, David Moon, is looking forward to the new influx of golfers keen to try out the new Kernow Course. “It has certainly undergone some spectacular changes from the Old Course,” he said.

“People hit the ball further nowadays, so our new golf course is longer and a little tighter, and there are some unique and memorable hazards to overcome. However it is still a fair and extremely enjoyable course for golfers of all standards.”

With the Nicklaus Signature Course fully refurbished and reopened in summer 2009, a spectacular new 80-room four star hotel including three dining experiences, thirteen conference and banqueting suites, and a luxurious Spa complex including three swimming pools, and with the announcement that the European Tour will return from 2011 with The English Open, St Mellion has frequently been in the news recently, and has gained many new admirers.

Situated near to Saltash in Cornwall, close to the villages, beaches and attractions for which the county is famed, but also within twenty minutes’ drive of Plymouth’s railway and airport, St Mellion offers easy travel links via Air Southwest, a low-cost airline offering daily scheduled flights into Plymouth from 11 airports across Great Britain & Ireland.

*For more info call 01579 351351, or visit  www.st-mellion.co.uk

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