Leeds' golfing gems are mined online

The team that produces golfs answer to tripadvisor, leadingcourses.com, including Evangelist Leonard van Nunen, third right, pictured at the Golf & Country Club Lauswolt in Beetsterzwaag.

LEEDS is an area renowned for a selection of high quality courses with arguably its most famous being Alwoodley and Moortown.

They were the first and second layouts respectively created by Dr Alister MacKenzie, the Normanton-born golf course architect who remains revered as a master of his craft.

Both are regularly used for regional qualifying for the Open championship and Moortown was the stage for the first Ryder Cup held in the UK, in 1929.

However, there are 30 courses affiliated to the Leeds & District Union and an indication of their high overall standard is reflected by more than half of them claiming a ‘recommended’ rating on the golfing website leadingcourses.com.

The strength of the site is the fact that reviews are written by club golfers with anyone able to offer their thoughts after playing a course by simply registering their name and email details.

Leonard van Nunen, a leadingcourses.com Evangelist, says the web aims to become golf’s answer to tripadvisor and with 350,000 users each month it appears on its way to achieving that goal.

A system of filtering means that someone considering a golfing trip can choose a region, green fee costs – and see course reviews banded according to the handicaps of the contributors.

The website was spawned 10 years ago after three of its creators played one of Ireland’s most famous and most expensive courses.

Van Nunen explained: “It was really difficult and windy and expensive, and they came off the course and a member asked, ‘Did you have fun?’ and one of the guys replied, ‘No, because I’m a handicap golfer, so I lost about 14 balls and I had to pay about €140 – so, no, not really’.