Royal Ashdown Forest

Royal Ashdown Forest occupies a place entirely its own in the landscape of English golf. The absence of bunkers is the fact that most often introduces the course to those who have not played it, but it is not a gimmick or an oversight; it is the logical consequence of a piece of land so naturally equipped with hazard that sand traps would be redundant. The heather at Ashdown is thick and penalising, the streams that cross several fairways demand careful thought about both line and length, and the trees that border the layout narrow the margins for error on a number of holes to a degree that no bunker could improve upon. The course defends itself on its own terms.

The Old Course stretches across elevated heathland with wide views over the Sussex Weald, and the quality of the light on a clear day, the warmth of the heather in late summer and the muted greys of the birch woodland in winter, gives each season a distinct character. The routing has a naturalness that comes from the course being laid out in 1888, when the expectation was simply that the land would be walked and the holes would follow it rather than impose upon it. That philosophy produces golf of a particular kind: unhurried, considered, shaped by the place rather than by the designer's ego.

Ashdown Forest carries its literary associations lightly. That A.A. Milne drew his inspiration for the Hundred Acre Wood from this landscape is a pleasant footnote rather than a marketing priority, and the course itself is far too serious as a test of golf to need the support of external associations. For golfers who want a round that is genuinely unlike anything else in England, Royal Ashdown Forest is one of the more compelling arguments for exploring the counties south of London with the same attention usually reserved for the Surrey and Berkshire heathland belt.