Chapter 1 - The history of Royal Zennor

Royal Zennor is unique, the most beautiful course in Cornwall, perhaps even in Britain. The sleepy hamlet of Zennor sits ten minutes southwest of St. Ives. Past the Tinners Arms, down a few rugged tracks, you eventually reach a beautiful slate sign embedded in the Cornish hedge. The embossed silver writing simply says ‘Royal Zennor’.

Nestled along the Penwith peninsula, Royal Zennor’s front nine, hugs the cliff edge as it snakes its way out to Commando Ridge. The perfect exemplar of a links course. The back nine tracks back further inland yet plays more like a heathland course. The views are outstanding. The course is nicknamed “the three cats” on account of the trio of coves nestled at its feet and their feline outline from the air. Porthzennor cove has larger more mouse like ears, so to some it's known as “Tom and Jerry”.

Royal Zennor’s history is unusual. The course was developed and privately owned for most of the twentieth century by two reclusive brothers – James and John Kernow. Until 1990, they lived next to the eighteenth green in a formidable granite manor that was now Royal Zennor’s clubhouse. Their wealth was legendary and its source a mystery, but whispers spoke of tin mines and ice cream.

For several decades the course was rarely used. A handful of guests every year, whatever the season’s weather, reported back that the fairways were lush and tightly mown and the greens in pristine condition. The brothers themselves played together only once a year, in a competitive match. Rumours claimed it was winner takes all, with each brother putting half of a million each in prize pot. But what nobody knew was that the real prize was a private jet from Mawgan Porth airport the following morning landing at Daniel Field Airport, a short cab ride from Augusta National. Every year, Augusta’s chairman hosted the winning brother as if they had won the Masters.

The brothers’ match was always played on the summer solstice, late in the evening to minimize the chance of unsuspecting hikers wandering by. Yet locals flocked to the course to witness some of the finest golf played in Cornwall. In their last match and into their early seventies, the brothers both shot below par and below their age.

But the summer of 1989 was the last time Cornwall ever saw the Kernow brothers. From that June, the grand old home was boarded up and builders moved in behind wooden screens. Mysterious figures kept the course looking immaculate. Then in the following June a sign went up in the village.

‘Royal Zennor Golf Club will open for membership on July 1st. By application only.’

Then in much smaller letters below.

“Exhibition match. Wednesday 20^th June 1990 at 19:00. Respectful spectators very welcome.”

Soon the clubhouse changing rooms and bars across the South West were a hubbub of excitement. Where were the Kernow brothers? Were they coming back to play in the exhibition match? ‘Royal’ Zennor? Open for membership? Theories abound and for the next two weeks the murmurs built into a crescendo of anticipation. Then on Wednesday morning, one week before Royal Zennor’s opening, the West Briton ran a front page exclusive. ‘British Open favourite coming to Royal Zennor’.

The article explained that England's finest golfer Nick Faldo would compete against one of Cornwall’s finest amateurs in an exhibition match to open the Royal Zennor Golf Course.

In an interview with its new secretary, Captain Jack Long, the recently retired commander of RAF Culdrose, explained that the Kernow brothers had decided to vacate their stately home, Pendour Manor, and turn it into one the finest clubhouses in the county. Captain Long either didn’t know or certainly wasn’t telling when the reporter asked where the Kernow brothers had gone. All he could report was that they had decided, with no little regret,
to retire where the sun shone longer and the golf was warmer, if not as spectacular.

On the matter of Zennor’s royal designation Captain Long was much clearer. He himself had written to the Queen to ask her to consider awarding the course royal status and asking her to be an honarary member. Her reply was emphatic.

“My great, great grandmother Queen Victoria was pleased to award the original Cornwall County Golf Club royal status in 1891 and I am more than happy that the Zennor Golf Club be known henceforth as the Royal Zennor Golf Club. I know my grandchildren will be holidaying in the county soon and I’m sure they’d love to come and visit.”

The final matter Captain Long addressed was how the club would work. The course, still owned by the Kernow estate, would now be open to members. Those interested were invited to apply. Their application would be considered by the secretary, Captain Long himself, and they’d be invited to play nine holes during which their application would be discussed. The cost of
membership would be discretionary.

The reporter pushed Captain Long on the criteria he would use to accept potential members. “When you say considered, on what basis will you be making decisions?”. Captain Long looked the reporter straight in the eye and answered slowly, “The brothers have given me very clear instructions. Membership will be offered based on one single criteria - a willingness to learn.”

For the next week, there was much talk of who Nick Faldo’s opponent would be. An announcement declared that the match would be a fourball with Nick Faldo’s caddy Fanny Sunnerson joining the Ladies club champion at Trevose, Emily Pengilley. Just turned sixteen and slight in stature, she drove the ball a country mile and from the ladies’ tees outdrove her
playing partners on every hole.

Faldo was to partner a newly minted professional Mo Penrose. Unknown to most, he had entered both the St. Enodoc Open and a regional qualifier for the British Open and won both by several shots. His ball striking was exceptional, the sound of his gun fire shots echoing round the course drawing exaltations the crowd.

On the day of the match, the wind got up and the offshore breeze meant that the strong left to right wind made the course very tricky. The two local players shone bright next to their professional partners. General consensus in the bar afterwards was that Emily Pengilley’s winning shot into the 17^th “Seal Bay” was shot of the day. With a fierce wind whipping into their faces,Emily stepped up and fired a low piercing bullet towards the eponymous bay way
left of the green. The ball reached level with the green and seemed to give itself up to the wind ballooning up and toppling back and to the right to the green. The ball gently landed 10ft left of the pin and rolled to within 4ft.

As he stepped into the taxi for the airport,Faldo commented that the afternoon’s golf had been the perfect preparation for his upcoming challenge at the Open. With a combined total of thirteen birdies, the ladies team claimed victory over the men on the 17th green.

An announcement was also made, after the match, tothe assembled throng on the clubhouse patio that Mo Penrose had accepted an invitation to become the new professional at Royal Zennor. As Faldo’s taxi started to crawl along the stone chip drive, he wound the window down and shouted,

“Mo Penrose is the luckiest professional alive -to be associated with this beautiful club. See you again soon”.

A big hairy waving hand was swallowed up as thewindow closed and the car sped off down the palm-tree-lined drive.

Over the next few months, applications poured into Captain Long’s office. He personally reviewed every letter and application and played thirty-six holes daily, so that by the end of September, Royal Zennor had three hundred new members, personally vetted and accepted on their eagerness to learn about the game of golf.

Now, thirty years later, Royal Zennor’s reputation had achieved legendary status. After a few years, Mo Penrose started inviting young professionals from all over the globe to spend a year
working with him and teaching the members. Multiple tournaments had been won by
the Royal Zennor alumni since, including fourteen majors, and all credited no small part of their success to the year of learning and wisdom provided by the club.

Captain Long, in his eighties, still vetted the continuous avalanche of applications. Very few left a memory anymore. Many were touching and all were earnest, but few were genuinely surprising.

Earlier that year though, Captain Long had received an application from a teenage boy, Matt Tullet. The boy explained how he’d started playing a year before and had succeeded in getting down to a single figure handicap. Yet it was an assignment at school that had piqued his real
fascination with the game. Students were asked to complete a project on thescience of everyday things. They could choose any subject within reason. How sunglasses work? Why driverless cars are so safe? Or even the science of what happens when you boil an egg?

Matt decided to work on explaining the science ofa golf swing. For weeks he read treatises on swing biomechanics and scratched his head at university level anatomical descriptions to try to explain how these translated into launch angles, spin rates and smash factors. His favourite book was Ben Hogan’s “The five fundamentals of golf”. Along with his application to Captain Long he attached a copy of his project, a beautifully laid out description of the physics of what happens when a golf club is swung correctly. But it was something Matt wrote in the conclusions that caught Captain Long’s eye,

"Whilst the fundamentals are important to understand, I know from my own play that it’s not easy to adopt a position or get your elbow at a certain angle on the downswing consistently. There must be something more …. some glue that Mr. Hogan used that helped him put these
fundamentals into practice.”

Captain Long knew as he read this last sentence that Matt would be perfectly suited to the club.