Royal Ashdown Forest Golf Club (Old Course)

Describing Royal Ashdown Forest Golf Club’s Old Course in 1934, Bernard Darwin wrote “two salient facts come to mind. It is not quite like any other of my acquaintance, and secondly, I never knew anyone who played on it and was not fond of it.”

Over 80 years later and little has changed. Here is a course designed by nature yet still ranked as one of the top 100 courses in the British Isles. Famous for having no bunkers, its reputation as a true test of golf is undiminished thanks to uncontrived hazards of heather, narrow fairways, hollows and streams.

Originally open heathland, trees from the forest have seeded, grown and matured to make accurate golf even more of a premium requirement as well as adding to its natural beauty. By comparison with some modern developments the course could be considered short, yet because of the exacting challenge it presents to even the best golfers, the Old Course has been selected by the R&A as an Open Championship Regional Qualifying venue. It also hosted the amateur international match between England and Spain in 2007 and the Ladies’ British Open Amateur Stroke Play Championship in 2011. In 2016 the Old Course staged the McGregor Trophy (English Boy’s Under 16 Open Amateur Stroke Play Championship) for the first time.