Wales may only be the 135th largest country in the world. But when it comes to golf, they think big. They hosted The 2010 Ryder Cup at Celtic Manor Resort on the only course ever created especially for the tournament. And in a country just 170 miles from top to toe, they’ve crammed in no fewer than 202 golf courses. With 850 miles of Welsh coastline, you’d expect some classic links. Iconic courses such as Royal Porthcawl, hosts of the 2014 Senior Open Championship, don’t disappoint. In fact, they tend to make people wax lyrical. Nefyn and District has been compared to playing golf on the deck of a battleship. And Bernard Darwin, The Times’s greatest writer, said Aberdovey was the course “my soul loves best of all the courses of the world”. But Wales doesn’t just have great links. There are world-class courses on clifftops, heathland and parkland, too, often within just a few miles of each other. Wherever you play, you’ll find the same welcome. Because this is “golf as it should be”: unstuffy, uncrowded, unhurried. So there’s plenty of time to take in your surroundings. And since 25% of Wales is in a National Park or an Area of Outstanding Beauty, there’s likely to be quite a view.