Royal Ashdown Forest Golf Club
Forest Row, East Sussex. A royal heathland club founded in 1888, with a bunkerless Old Course and a woodland West Course, both left as nature made them.
Royal Ashdown Forest Golf Club sits at Forest Row in East Sussex, about 35 miles south of London on the A22 between Crawley and Royal Tunbridge Wells. Founded in 1888 and granted its royal title by Queen Victoria in 1893, it is one of the oldest and most unspoilt heathland clubs in the south-east.
The club prides itself on being natural. Its own website says no earth has been moved, no ponds dug and no streams diverted. The Old Course is par 72 and a little under 6,500 yards, with no bunkers at all. Instead, heather, humps, hollows, pools and streams provide the defences, and the elevated holes give wide views across the forest and the rolling Sussex countryside. It rewards skill over power, and the 6th, a short par 3 surrounded by water on three sides, is far harder than its yardage suggests. The 12th, a downhill par 5 of more than 560 yards, is often called the highlight of the round. The course features in the Golf World Top 100 for Great Britain and Ireland.
The West Course is a different proposition, winding through mature broadleaf woodland within Ashdown Forest. It is shorter but well regarded, ranked first in the country among courses under 6,000 yards according to the club.
Tee times at these private clubs need to be arranged in advance, and Golf Tours London can build them into a bespoke itinerary and organise transport between your hotel and the course. Gatwick Airport is roughly 30 minutes away.
