About The Sacred Acre

Hi, my name is Dan Davies. I am an author, journalist and newly minted man of the land. The Sacred Acre combines many of the things I have written about in magazines and newspapers for over three decades: golf, my family and friends.

In the summer of 2021, soon after the end of the pandemic, we left London and moved to Devon, officially on the promise of providing a better and healthier way of life for our three young children; unofficially on the promise of being able to create a very small golf course in an orchard behind the farmhouse we rent.

That very small golf course has become a golf club: RNGC, short for Royal Norton Golf Club. The clubhouse is an open-sided lean-to shed once inhabited by sheep. There are nine holes but no pars. At RNGC, par is considered vulgar. We currently have over 70 members. To become a member all you have to do is play the course.

Why am I doing this? Well, it’s certainly not for profit. We don’t even own the land.

The thousands of hours of time, passion and effort, the rusting fleet of ancient, cheap and recalcitrant machinery that has been mobilised, broken and sworn at, the mistakes and the minor triumphs, they all combine in a crescendo for the annual RNGC Invitational, a raucous, fancy dress extreme short golf convention that takes place over a weekend in early June.

All those who play become honorary life members of the club. They’ve generally earned it.

This beautiful film on the first RNGC Invitational was made by Cookie Jar Golf

There has not been a day when I’ve walked around RNGC (and those walks take place multiple times a day when I’m at home) and not pictured the tiny course dotted with familiar faces, sun shining, music playing and laughter ringing off the trees and hedgerows.

This ridiculous bonsai golf course has been created as a place for my friends — people I’ve played golf with and become close to through the game, others who don’t really play at all — to come together. One day, I hope it will get my children hooked on golf.

What it has come to mean to me, though, is something altogether more profound.

Passing through the gate into the orchard is like stepping through a portal into a living canvas where everything is constantly and imperceptibly changing. I tune into the soundscape of birds, insects and the wind as I walk RNGC’s paths, forming new ideas and compiling endless lists. It’s where I go to lose myself in toil; to escape, to breathe, to think.

So, this is the story of that golf course, as well as the people behind it, around it and on it. It is also the story of being totally unprepared for falling in love with a small piece of land.

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