Celtic Manor The Twenty Ten Course

The resort at Celtic Manor was conceived and developed by Sir Terence Matthews. In the late 1970s, Matthews bought a near-derelict manor house and turned it into a small hotel. The hotel became popular and successful, winning the Egon Ronay Best Hotel in Wales award five years on the trot.  Matthews’s long-term vision was a golfing complex and no doubt he thought the piece de resistance was the Wentwood Hills course, which opened for play in September 1999, designed by Robert Trent Jones Jnr but we doubt that even in his wildest dreams could he ever have imagined that Celtic Manor would host a Ryder Cup.  A bit of Augusta, a bit of Florida and a lot of Wales, was how they referred to Wentwood Hills and they were absolutely right. There was a coalition of British and American features, which Trent Jones Jnr described as “a true championship course that combines a hilly landscape with the more traditional links-like features of an estuary. There's great variety here”. But all that was before Celtic Manor became the chosen venue for the 2010 Ryder Cup when a decision was made to create a new course for staging golf’s greatest team event.  In July 2007, the first course to be built specifically for the Ryder Cup opened its tees for play. The course, aptly called “Twenty Ten”, is the result of collaboration between the European PGA, golf course architects and tour pros; the objective was to create a unique Ryder Cup venue.  The new Twenty Ten course measures a beefy 7,493 yards with par set at 71. It features nine dramatic new holes that have been routed through the Usk Valley, as well as nine holes from the former Wentwood Hills course that have been extensively re-fashioned. The new design ensures not only that each hole is an exacting test but also that there is an amphitheatre for great spectator viewing.  

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