The Celtic Manor Resort In Brief
Set in 1400 acres of panoramic parkland at the gateway to Wales, The Celtic Manor Resort offers two hotels - a 330 room, 32 suite five star Resort Hotel, and an historic 19th century Manor House hotel with 70 bedrooms. In addition, there is a 1500 delegate convention centre, 14,000 square foot Exhibition Hall, 31 function rooms, 5 restaurants, 3 championship golf courses, 2 health clubs, a Clarins Health Spa and the award-winning Forum Spa. Celtic Manor provides a complete resort experience for the individual business and leisure traveller and is the ideal venue for conferences, product launches, corporate hospitality and incentives.
History
Celtic Manor is the brainchild of Welsh telecommunications entrepreneur Sir Terence Matthews. In 1980, he bought the original 19th century Manor House, formerly a coal magnate’s residence and later a maternity hospital. Although Sir Terry was born there, his decision to turn the Manor House into a hotel was not based purely on sentiment: he saw its highly visible and accessible yet picturesque location as ideal for the development of a convention and leisure resort. At £140m, it is the biggest single private investment in the British hospitality industry. For more information about the history of The Celtic Manor click here.
Awards
Since completing a major expansion programme in 1999, Celtic Manor has won a host of accolades. The AA, RAC and Wales Tourist Board have all given the Resort five star status in recognition of its exceptional standards. The AA also awarded the resort Hotel of the Year for Wales 2000 and more recently won Best Hotel in Wales in the inaugural HotelClub Awards of 2007.
Celtic Manor was also voted Independent Hotel of the Year by a panel of leading industry experts for the Caterer and Hotelkeeper magazine’s ‘Catey 2001 Awards UK’. The extensive list of accolades also includes awards for cuisine and The Forum Health Club and Spa. In 2005, The Forum Spa was the only UK spa to be nominated by both the Professional Spa Association and the British Beauty Awards in the category of Destination Spa of the Year. It was also a finalist for Destination Spa of the Year at the 2006 British Beauty Awards.
Celtic Manor was voted Welsh Golf Course of the Year by readers of Golf Punk magazine within months of opening the new Twenty Ten course in 2007 while the Roman Road course had previously been recognised Top Inland Course in Wales by Golf Monthly. In recognition of its world-class convention facilities, Celtic Manor was voted Top UK Conference Hotel 2005 by readers of industry magazine Conference and Incentive Travel – an accolade the resort regained in 2007. The Resort has also won awards for its people. In July 2005, Celtic Manor was proud to be re-accredited as an Investor in People organisation in its periodic review.
The Resort’s Marketing Team also celebrated success winning the Viacom Outdoor Campaign of the Quarter (2005) for its Celtic Manor Wales Open 2005 advertising campaign.
Ryder Cup
The Celtic Manor Resort is the home of The 2010 Ryder Cup. The European Ryder Cup Board selected the Resort after it was nominated as the official candidate venue for Wales. This means that following the postponed matches at the Belfry in 2002, there will be three consecutive Celtic venues, starting with the K Club, Ireland (2006) and finishing with Gleneagles, Scotland (2014) before the matches move to continental Europe.
Championship Courses
Just eight years after work began on the first of its golf courses, The Celtic Manor Resort was selected as the venue for the 2010 Ryder Cup. Staged in Europe every four years, the Ryder Cup is the world’s most prestigious golf event and the third largest sporting event in the world in terms of global TV audience, after the Olympics and the soccer World Cup. In 2010, for the first time in history, the tournament comes to Wales, when the 38th Ryder Cup Matches will be staged at The Celtic Manor Resort.
The golfing facilities, like everything else at Celtic Manor, have been designed to be among the very best in the world. The Resort boasts three championship courses – the new Twenty Ten course, the first in history to have been purpose-built for The Ryder Cup; The Montgomerie, designed by Europe’s eight-time No 1 golfer, Colin Montgomerie; and the 18-hole Roman Road course, venue for the last three Celtic Manor Wales Opens.
The Celtic Manor Golf Academy features a floodlit driving range, practice range, golf shop and three teaching bays. Facilities also include two large and luxurious golf clubhouse – The Twenty Ten Clubhouse and The Lodge, each with their own bars, stylish restaurants and lounges.
The Twenty Ten Course
Opened in July 2007, the new Twenty Ten course is the first course in history to have been designed specifically for hosting The Ryder Cup which The Celtic Manor Resort is bringing to Wales for the first time in 2010. The course is a par 71, measuring 7,493 yards. It features nine brand new holes that have been developed along the floor of the Usk Valley, as well as nine holes from the former Wentwood Hills championship course that have been extensively remodelled to match the new design. With water hazards on half of its holes, the course presents many memorable challenges and one of its signature holes is the new 413-yard 14th, where golfers will have to select whether to take on a long carry with a drive down the right hand side or else face another lake cutting in from the left with their approach.
Classic matchplay dilemmas are presented by a number of other holes including the driveable par-four 15th. One of the features of the new course is its variety with many of the earlier holes having a links-like feel with some long rough and greenside swales, before the middle section of the course reveals the full extent of the lake-lined challenge. A tough closing stretch culminates in the 18th, a spectacular reachable par-five which demands a nerveless approach to a green which rises like a fortress above a protective moat below. Spectators are supremely well catered for with three large viewing platforms constructed for hospitality above the 16th, 17th and 18th holes.
Galleries are able to gather on the huge natural slopes below them to view not only the closing holes but also the action as it unfolds across the remainder of the course. The Twenty Ten course will host The Celtic Manor Wales Open on the European Tour from 2008 in preparation for The Ryder Cup of 2010.
The Montgomerie
The new Montgomerie course also opened in July 2007. Designed by Ryder Cup legend, Colin Montgomerie, the new course measures 6,371 yards and has a par of 69. The front nine takes as its framework the starting and closing holes of the old Wentwood Hills championship course which were not part of the plans for the new course for The Ryder Cup. The back nine has been created from scratch on land that previously housed the 18-hole Coldra Woods academy course.
Throughout the new course, Montgomerie has added his own stamp on the layout. A traditionalist in design terms, the eight-time European No 1 has added deep pot bunkers to give the course a linksy look. Spectacular views abound with dramatic tee shots over valleys and breathtaking downhill shots. Two long par fives, a number of short par fours and several testing par threes all add up to an exciting and rewarding challenge.
Roman Road
Roman Road, the first of the Resort’s courses, opened in 1995 and was ranked ‘the top inland course in Wales’ by Golf Monthly magazine. Overlooking the Severn Estuary with views across to Somerset and Devon, it was designed by Robert Trent Jones Snr and takes its name from the ancient East to West highway of Roman Britain crossing its fairways to the nearby Roman fortress town of Caerleon. Bordered by woodland, this challenging course varies from long open fairways and dramatic descents on the front nine to a back nine that twists and turns through trees and across lakes and streams.
The Roman Road was the venue for The Celtic Manor Wales Open on the European Tour from 2005 to 2007. In 2005 and 2006 the course also hosted the celebrity All*Star Cup featuring stars such as Catherine Zeta Jones, Michael Douglas, Ronan Keating, Chris Evans, Jodie Kidd, Bruce Forsyth, William Baldwin, Alice Cooper, James Nesbitt and Jane Seymour.
The Twenty Ten Clubhouse
Another piece of the Ryder Cup jigsaw slotted into place at The Celtic Manor Resort with the opening of the new Twenty Ten Clubhouse in November 2007. Part of a total investement of £16 million in the new course and surrounding infrastructure, the impressive clubhouse features Rafters Restaurant, with its floor-to-ceiling cedar beams and modern European dining; a members lounge with leather chesterfields, high-backed chairs and a warming open hearth; and luxurious, oak-panelled locker rooms from where it will be possible to order a drink from the spike bar as you kick back and relax after your round. Long balconies take full advantage of a stunning location on the hillside overlooking the 18th hole as well as the scenic Usk Valley beyond.
The Lodge
Built at a cost of £10 million and opened in 1995, The Lodge was designed with major tournaments in mind and is one of the largest and finest clubhouses in Europe. It offers three conference and banqueting rooms, a stylish brasserie restaurant, two bars, a dining terrace overlooking the 18th green, function rooms for private dining, Dylans Health and Fitness Club with indoor Romanesque pool, gym, sauna and spa pool, luxury locker rooms, and The Clarins Health Spa which opened in January 2006.
The Golf Academy
The Golf Academy opened in 1995 and is one of the best facilities of its kind in the country. It provides comprehensive tuition options that are amongst the best available, with a superb team of coaching professionals. It was home to Team Faldo, Nick Faldo’s elite group of young golfers, from 2005 to 2007 and is a Centre of Excellence for the Golf Union of Wales.
Facilities and services include:
- Golf Academy with professional tuition
- 28 bay two tier driving range
- Practice greens Short play areas
- Pro Coach video swing analysis
- Custom fit centre
- Residential and day/half day schools
- Junior coaching weeks
- Corporate golf clinics Corporate golf days
- Pro shops
- Equipment hire
The Forum Health Club and Spa
The Forum Health Club and Spa offers 16 treatment rooms, hair salon, swimming pools, 42 station hi-tech gym, cardio theatre, aerobics, saunas, steam rooms, plunge pools, young persons entertainment centre and leisure café. At 39,000 square feet, it is the largest and most luxurious major hotel health club in the UK. In its first year of operation, it was awarded the 5 wave grading from the British International Spa Association, the leisure industry’s equivalent of five stars for luxury hotels.
Convention Centre
The Caernarfon Suite, which accommodates up to 1500 delegates theatre style and 770 for banquets, is at the heart of the Resort’s purpose built convention centre. The centre also has 24 syndicate and meeting rooms, ranging from those seating ten people boardroom style to the Beaumaris Suite, accommodating up to 170 for conferences. All the rooms have world class technical facilities, and there is easy access by escalator and elevator to the main Resort Hotel lobby level. The Centre also has an organisers' office and a business centre, providing copying, fax, secretarial services, workstation and e-mail/Internet access. An additional 14,000 sq ft Exhibition Hall was opened in September 2004.
Dining
The Resort has five restaurants: The Crown is the Resort's new flagship restaurant offering a gourmet fine dining experience; Rafters, the atmospheric new restaurant at The Twenty Ten Clubhouse, offering modern European cuisine using the finest Welsh produce; The Olive Tree, the informal main restaurant overlooking the Roman Road course, with its highly popular Mediterranean buffet; The Patio at The Manor House, with a great value menu with an Italian touch; and The Lodge Brasserie, enjoying panoramic golfing views and offering a selection of dishes with a Welsh flavour.
