#6 Celtic Challenge, Celtic Manor, Newport

Type: Crazy
Price: £4 each
Duration: 30 minutes
Rating: 5/5

Review:

This is the second of the courses at Celtic Manor as alluded to in my very first review. This is a crazy golf course, but nowhere near the average quality of other courses. This is a bit of a luxury course, as you might expect from the Celtic Manor, now a world class hotel and golf resort.

Hole 3 - Celtic Roundhouse

The obstacles are straight out of the top drawer including an 8' Celtic Cross, an enormous Celtic calendar and even a roundhouse complete with a thatched roof! Some serious money has been spent here not only on the course decoration, but the course itself is a brilliant smooth surface and very well designed. The holes are tricky enough to be challenging but none are impossible to complete in one or two good shots.

By far the best feature of the course was the two rafts used to get on and off hole 3 "Wales by the Sea".

This is billed as the easier of the two courses, and has a par of 28 as compared to 34 at the Kingdom of Legends. However, we found it far more challenging and had a great time.

This is a briliantly themed and top class course and well worth a trip, expecially with the equally fantastic Kingdom of Legends alongside.


Result:
We were joined by Rick, of Barry Island fame, who hit a 1 over par of 29 along with Stu. Debs was caught out by a few obstacles and scored 34.
We also played the other course as a decider and Rick scored -6, Stu -4 and Debs -2. A hole in one on both courses helped Rick to a famous win!

Hole 8 features the curiously named "Great Rock"

Hole 6 has two full size rafts!

Hole in one!

#1 Kingdom of Legends, Celtic Manor, Newport

Type: Mini-golf
Price: £4
Duration: 30 minutes
Rating: 5/5

Review:
This is a brand new course at the now world famous Celtic Manor. There are two 9-hole courses, the 'Celtic Challenge' adventure course and the other that replicates some of the best known real holes from around the world.

There are holes modelled on St Andrews, Pebble Beach and Augusta and some inspired by past Ryder Cup venues such as The Belfry, Valderrama and Valhalla, not forgetting the signature 14th hole on The Twenty Ten Course at Celtic Manor.

We only played the second course as it's more advanced, and we didn't fancy £4 each for each course. The surface was excellent astroturf, very smooth with white astroturf for bunkers. The stream running through meant all the holes had real water hazards, based of course on the real holes. There were ramps for these hazards, which meant some tricky positional shots were needed.

As expected the course design was great, you can hardly argue with that as these holes some of the most famous in the world! We really enjoyed the challenge, but felt £4 was a little steep for 9 holes. However, the course was superbly maintained, which you can expect to continue being a 5 star hotel resort.

Result:
On a par 34 course, Debs won by 3 strokes with a brilliant 4 under par. The hole in one at "Augusta" all but sealed the victory early on!