Beau Desert

Cannock Chase provides one of the most surprising backdrops in English golf. The Chase is a plateau of lowland heath rising above the Staffordshire plain, an island of open heather and birch woodland in an otherwise heavily farmed and industrialised county. Herbert Fowler recognised the potential of this landscape when he designed Beau Desert in 1921, and his routing captures the best of what the Chase has to offer: wide panoramas across the heather, tight woodland corridors where accuracy is essential and a natural variety of terrain that keeps the round interesting from the first tee to the eighteenth green.

The course is firmly in the tradition of the great English heathland designs, drawing comparison with Fowler's own work at Walton Heath while having a character specific to its Staffordshire setting. The heather rough is thick and punishing, the fairways are firm in dry conditions and the elevated positions of several holes give distant views across the Chase that serve as a constant reminder of where you are. This is not a manufactured landscape; the drama of the course is entirely natural, and Fowler's skill lay in revealing rather than imposing it.

The Midlands region has a number of excellent golf courses, but it does not always attract the same level of attention from travelling golfers as the more celebrated areas of England. Beau Desert makes the strongest possible case for changing that perception. A course of this quality, set within a landscape of genuine distinction, in a region where visitor demand has not driven green fees to prohibitive levels, represents an unusually good proposition for any golfer prepared to look beyond the familiar southern heathland corridor.