Club profile: Saunton Golf Club

The Devon venue has two courses that have collectively been designated as an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, a Site of Special Scientific Interest, a Special Area of Conservation and a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve, writes the club’s member services and marketing manager, Will Smith.

Saunton Golf Club sits in a unique location on the north Devon coastline neighbouring the Braunton Burrows, a sand dune system which is the largest in England. In recognition of this, the Burrows and the two courses at Saunton have been designated as an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI), a Special Area of Conservation (SAC) and a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve.

In late 2022, the club embarked on a project to naturalise the fairway bunkers, a change from their previous ‘pot’ bunker style. The benefits of this include an improved playing experience, a more natural look (in keeping with the dune landscape) and a more sustainable approach to bunker maintenance (removing the need for revetment turf to construct the bunker faces), and therefore significant cost savings on turf and maintenance hours. The East Course at Saunton was completed first in the autumn / winter of 2022/23, and the West Course was then completed over the autumn / winter of 2023/24.

Saunton signed a ‘Higher Tier Stewardship’ agreement and received grant funding to complete essential ecology works such as scrub clearance, creation of sand scrapes and creation of dune slacks. The benefits of these works are that flora will flourish and ground-nesting birds, reptiles and amphibians will thrive. These works began over the autumn / winter of 2023/24 and the appearance of Saunton is now much more in keeping with the dune landscape.

Pictures of the club from the 1920s and 1930s showcased here show vast amounts of open sand visible. Over time, these areas were taken over by an excess of invasive scrub and a lack of open sand. The club’s ecology plan, put together by expert ecological consultants, Bob Taylor and Sophie Olejnik, seeks to redress the balance and re-establish habitats for ground-nesting birds, reptiles and wild flora / fauna. Saunton has made great progress with this project.

The first tee on the East Course before a sustainability project (see scrub to the left of the fairway)

Saunton GC is very mindful of the site’s protected ecological designations and always aims to ‘work in harmony with the local ecology’. The golf club is also conscious of its wider environmental impact and due to lots of initiatives has won the Sport & Recreation Alliance ‘Going Green Award’ and a ‘Green Apple Award’ in 2023. Environmental initiatives include solar panels, EV charge points, hybrid greens machinery and a turf nursery.

And after. (See open sand now in place of the scrub)

The club has also embarked on a detailed and extensive course improvement programme, which has seen fantastic results in the presentation and playability of both the East and West Courses along with the club entering the ‘World’s Top 100’ and continuing to climb the various golf course rankings.