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.”

 

74 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.

 

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 again 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.

 

So, what is it that makes the course so special that even famed architects such as Harry Colt were inspired by it? An example is the difficulty of the 6th. Then there’s the 11th where you stand on an elevated tee with glorious views of the North Downs and stare down at a 249 yard par 3. Each hole is different, each memorable, each with its own challenge and each surrounded by the quiet magnificence of Ashdown Forest.