Stoke Park Country Club, Spa & Hotel, in Buckinghamshire, has been hailed as the world’s top gourmet golf resort by Great Golf magazine, in its 100 Greatest Golf Resorts 2017 edition.
The magazine is the “leading golf travel & lifestyle magazine … for golfers who want the best” and is a multi-platform publication available “online and in hard copy at luxury golf resorts, five-star hotels, airline business class lounges, privates jets, city financial locations and many other targeted locations”.
And Stoke Park’s blend of outstanding golf course and three AA Rosette, fine-dining Humphry’s restaurant secured its place at the top of the category for ‘Gourmet Golf Resorts’, beating off the likes of Gleneagles, Trump Turnberry, Trump Doonbeg, Mission Hills, in China, Half Moon resort, in Jamaica, Fairmont Orchid, in Hawaii, Park Hyatt Dubai and the Intercontinental Fiji Golf Resort & Spa, which all made the shortlisted top 20.
The magazine stated: “It’s one of Britain’s leading five-star hotel and country clubs. With a championship golf course, tennis courts and award winning spa, Stoke Park has been a favourite haunt of the rich and famous for centuries.
“Great Golf … found the food to be exceptional. Before coming here, executive chef Chris Wheeler honed his culinary skills as right-hand man to French chef Jean-Christophe Novelli, working with him in various Michelin starred restaurants: first at Le Provence in Lymington and later helping him launch Maison Novelli.
“A dining experience here, surrounded by stunning décor and panoramic views of the estate, will definitely be one to remember.”
Stoke Park’s director of golf, Stuart Collier, said: “This award is a great fillip for everybody who works here and is a member here. But it does not come as a complete surprise. Anybody who has experienced the food in Humphry’s knows that Chris Wheeler is an exceptional chef whose team produces a stunning menu.
“And Chris also oversees the menu in the golf clubhouse and is responsible for choosing what goes on it, when, and how it is prepared; to have a chef of that calibre responsible for the food in a golf club is extraordinary really, and it’s just another reason why Stoke Park is a unique golf venue.”
Wheeler featured in last year’s BBC series of Great British Menu and has also been seen on Hell’s Kitchen 2, Chefs Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is, Sunday Brunch and Saturday Kitchen.
Set within 300 acres of beautiful private parkland estate in Stoke Poges, Bucks, Stoke Park is only 35 minutes from London and seven miles from Heathrow Airport. Laid out across 300 acres of mid-19th century, Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown-landscaped parkland, the 27-hole golf course was designed by Colt in 1908.
It is one of just two five-AA Red Star golf clubs in England and the historic land on which it stands is recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086. The celebrated course played host to the PGA Matchplay in 1910 and, even more famously, the golf match between Sean Connery’s James Bond and Auric Goldfinger, in the 1964 film, Goldfinger.
The striking clubhouse – recognised as the fifth most iconic in the world, by Golf.com, the online presence of leading US publication Golf Magazine – dates from the late 18th century and has featured in many other films including Layer Cake, Bridget Jones’s Diary, and Wimbledon. Stoke Park also has a thriving golf club with around 800 active members.
www.stokepark.com
ENDS
Written and distributed on behalf of Stoke Park Country Club, Spa & Hotel by the Azalea Group.
Information for journalists
• Stoke Park Country Club, Spa & Hotel is one of just two five-AA Red Star golf clubs in England. The land that constitutes the estate is recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086.
• In 2015 it was named UK golf’s ‘Ultimate Members Club’ at the 59club Service Excellence Awards.
• Laid out across 300 acres of mid-19th century, Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown-landscaped parkland, the 27-hole golf course was designed by the legendary Harry Colt and opened in 1908 and comprises:
o The Colt course (holes one to nine): The Colt nine will be the first loop to undergo the bunker renovation and will reopen in April 2016. The seventh hole was the inspiration for the original 16th at Augusta National, home of the US Masters, before the latter was amended in the 1940s. Augusta designer Alister MacKenzie (1870-1934) a partner in the short-lived practice of Colt, MacKenzie & Alison.
o The Alison Course (holes 10-18): Holes 17 and 18 on the Alison – which will be the second of the nine-hole loops to be renovated, in winter 2016/17 – featured in a classic cinematic exchange in 1964, between Sean Connery’s James Bond and the eponymous super-villain Auric Goldfinger. Their round of golf ended in front of the iconic clubhouse – purportedly ‘Royal St Mark’s’ golf club – which itself dates from the late 18th century and has featured in many other films including Layer Cake, Bridget Jones’s Diary, and Wimbledon.
o NOTE: The iconic still from Goldfinger, which shows Bond and Oddjob looking on in front of the clubhouse as Goldfinger putts out, is owned by Stoke Park Country Club, Spa & Hotel and may be available for editorial use in features about the venue.
o The Lane Jackson course (holes 19-27): Holes 19 to 27 – which will be upgraded in winter 2017/18 – were turned over to potato fields during World War II and were not fully restored to use as a ‘Colt’ golf course until 1998. The nine-hole loop is named after the creator of the Stoke Park Club, Nick ‘Pa’ Lane Jackson (1849-1937), who also launched the famous Corinthian Football Club. Hole 21 features the much photographed Repton Bridge, which takes its name from the gardener, Humphry Repton, who picked up the mantle at Stoke Park from ‘Capability’ Brown.
o Practice facilities: The striking monument at the bottom of Stoke Park’s practice area is of Sir Edward Coke (1552-1634), a former Solicitor General and speaker of the House of Commons, who was a tenant on the estate from 1598. He was the country’s first Chief Justice and, as Attorney General, tried Guy Fawkes and Sir Walter Raleigh, among many others.
• High-resolution images of golf at Stoke Park Country Club, Spa & Hotel are available for download, for editorial purposes only, from http://bit.ly/StokePk.
For further information please contact Dave Bowers (dave@theazaleagroup.com) or Daniel Chidley (daniel@theazaleagroup.com) at the Azalea Group on +44 (0) 1730 711920.
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