Royal Ashdown Forest Golf Club

Very few golf clubs boast two 18-hole courses, both over 100 years old, especially those that differ as much as the West Course and the Old Course at Royal Ashdown Forest Golf Club. The Old Course is still very much a heathland course, the West snakes its way through the trees at the heart of the Ashdown Forest which spreads for over 20 square miles in this most beautiful part of Sussex. The West was once the longest Ladies Golf Club in England. It was originally founded as the Ashdown Forest & Tunbridge Wells Ladies Golf Club in 1889, barely six months after the formation of the main club and was only the second of its type to be formed in Great Britain, after Sunningdale Ladies. In 1932 the course was lengthened to 18 holes, the same year that the ladies’ Club was awarded Royal status in its own right. Whereas banks of heather, gorse and thick rough help defend the Old Course in the absence of bunkers, the West is an altogether tighter challenge with narrow tree lined fairways and small, often elevated greens with some fiendish run-offs.