By Arrangement · set out in full
The commission we are asked for most often, and the only one we have put on paper. London, the north Norfolk coast, then south into Suffolk — arranged around a tide that has not moved since 1892.
Everything else we build from scratch. This one we have written down, because it is the week people describe to us before they have the words for it.
What follows is a shape, not a package. The courses are fixed points; the order moves with the tide, the weather and whichever mornings the clubs can hold on your dates. We will tell you which of them we have and which we do not before you commit to anything.
Nothing below is priced. Nothing below is bookable from a page.
The week at a glance
The week
Most groups arrive from somewhere else, and a transatlantic morning is a poor way to begin a golf week. So the first night is in London, with nothing asked of you. Dinner is booked if you want it and cancelled without comment if you do not.
You fly to the clifftop at Cromer, which takes under an hour and puts you a short walk from the first tee. If the coast has other ideas — and in a fortnight of weather here it will, once — the car is already waiting and the day runs as written, an hour or so later.
A clifftop course with the lighthouse in the middle of it and the sea on your shoulder for most of the round. We ask the club to close the sheet for the morning and put a starter on the first. That is arranged at their discretion and ours, and we do not sell it as certain until it is held.
Ten minutes west along the same coast, and a different proposition entirely — a cliff-top links where the railway runs below the fourth and the sea is in view from almost every hole. Lunch after, rather than a hurried nine holes somewhere else.
Brancaster. The road across the marsh is under water twice a day and there is no second entrance, so this is the one day of the week that is not ours to schedule. We build the rest of the week outward from whatever window the tide gives us that morning.
Thirty minutes west, and the course a good many people who have played both quietly prefer. Dunes, hard ground and a wind that decides the round. The afternoon is free for Holkham, the marshes or nothing at all.
Heathland through the forest, and the right way to break the drive south rather than spending it in the car. Braid's work, pine and heather, and a complete change of ground after four days of links.
Nine holes inland that a great many good judges call the finest nine in the world. Played twice, as it is meant to be, and it takes less of the day than you expect — which is part of the point.
Heathland on the Suffolk coast to finish, then the car to the airport when it is time to go. Groups who would rather not end on a travel day stay a further night at Aldeburgh; we would not argue with them.
What is arranged around it
Nothing on this page is an upgrade to be asked for. It is what a week under By Arrangement includes, and the itinerary above is simply where it happens to go.
Not on call. There for the whole week — between the coasts, to dinner, and to Holkham with anyone who would rather not play. Clubs move separately, so nobody handles a bag between the first tee and the last green.
Morston Hall has held a Michelin star for twenty-five years and is fifteen minutes from where you are staying. Meadowsweet at Holt and The Neptune at Old Hunstanton are the other two on this coast. Tables are held before you arrive, because in season they are not there to be found on the night.
Caddies arranged in advance where the club has them. A PGA professional with you for the week, for a group who would rather play better by Sunday than merely play.
Shooting, sailing on the marshes, the seals at Blakeney, a day at Holkham. Arranged to the same standard as the golf, and not as an afterthought — most weeks here include somebody who has come for the coast rather than the courses.
How it begins
The week above is the version we would build if you gave us a free hand. Most groups do not, and that is usually better — you will have a course you want, a night you cannot move, or somebody who will not play seven days running.
Send us the dates and the number, and we will come back with what is actually possible on them, including what is not.
Begin a conversationOr see the rest
This is one of four commissions. The others — the Ryder Cup week, the Sacred Nine, and three nights on the north coast — are set out on By Arrangement.