The 10 best golf courses in the Midlands

With our general love and fascination of heading to the coast or the heathlands to pursue our favourite hobby, The Midlands isn’t generally regarded as a golfing hot spot in the UK.

But this part of England – we’ve stuck to within a radius of 30 miles of Birmingham – offers some premium golf, winding its way through some underrated heathland and parkland areas and providing plenty of variety.

While there are no real high-fliers challenging a GB&I Top 100 ranking, but there are plenty in a similar English listing and all 10 courses here are well worth a trip.

The Belfry is the best known for its staging of a record four Ryder Cups but, while the occasion has always dazzled, the course was never thought of as being anything other than a somewhat functional parkland.

Green fee wise none of these courses will cost you more than £200, which is a fairly depressing claim to fame with the current state of green fees, but they are all accessible and one is literally minutes away from Birmingham city centre.

Organised well, you could arrange a very easy trip to the Midlands with small pockets of great courses a short distance from one another. Here are the best places to visit if you're in the area.

Little Aston 

Location: 12 miles north of the city centre 

Green fees: £180

A day spent at Little Aston is one of the treats in the Midlands. One of the most recognisable sights here is the putting green which has to be one of the most picturesque pre or post-round experiences anywhere in the world.

The course is situated in the Little Aston Private Estate in Sutton Coldfield and it has that feel, a brilliant parkland layout that is tucked away from the impressive local housing.

The two Harrys, Vardon and Colt, laid out the course and, other than the relocation of the 17th green beside the lake, the layout remains much the same. It dates back to 1908 and it has always been highly regarded, with excellent trademark Colt bunkering and conditioning, and everything is in front of you. The short holes are particularly sweet, emerging from the trees to distant and well-protected greens. 

Little Aston also has a prestigious history with the elite players having hosted the Brabazon Trophy three times, five British Masters while Tommy Fleetwood captured the English Amateur here in 2010. Robert Rock is a member here these days.

Visit Little Aston

Beau Desert 

Location: 30 miles north of the city centre in Staffs

Green fees: £130

Played host to this year's English Amateur, won by Jamie Van Wyk, which speaks volumes about the quality of the course. This is a Herbert Fowler creation, he of Walton Heath, Aberdovey, Cruden Bay and Lytham fame, and this is quite different from many tests around the UK.

The greens are decorated by lots of dramatic pits in their surrounds and this is not a course to merrily whale away at the driver, instead it is a positional course with plenty of doglegs in both directions. The 12th offers a bit of both, playing as a double dogleg and the 1st and 18th also offer something different.

The opening hole is an uphill par 4, which for the bigger hitters, can be taken on while the final hole leaves you possibly making another decision whether to take on the green in two, mindful of the swathes of heather that sit short of the putting surface.

Highly regarded Beau Desert – Beautiful Wilderness – is in or around the fringes of most GB&I Top 100 rankings.

Visit Beau Desert

Blackwell 

Location: 25 miles south of the city centre

Green fees: £140

The club dates back to 1893 but the course that is now played today, just outside the village of Blackwell, is a couple of miles away – there is actually a fascinating film of the club's original 9-hole course.

Tom Simpson and Herbert Fowler are credited with the new design though it is Simpson who did the majority of the work and it's a masterpiece in routing, covering an extremely small acreage and featuring some eccentric green contours. The 18th is an example of this where a short par 4 culminates in some style in front of the clubhouse.

Blackwell remains the quintessential English gem with plenty of history and tradition. The day after his Open victory at Hoylake in 1930, the year of his Grand Slam, Bobby Jones played here. Interestingly, there is also the chance that he based the iconic 12th at Augusta on the 13th at Blackwelll.

In more recent times work by Frank Pont has seen full bunker renovation, huge clearance of trees and the subsequent width with more closely mown areas and fairway expansions. If you're considering a visit here in the summer the club still insist on long socks being worn with shorts.

Visit Blackwell

Sutton Coldfield 

Location: Six miles from the city centre in a golf-rich area 

Green fees: £110

The club was founded in 1893 but Dr Alister MacKenzie's work here in the 1920s was pivotal in its development and restore its popularity.

When he first came here in 1919 he commented: “The land on which the present course is situated is almost the best heathland I know for golf. If the suggested alterations are done, there is no reason why it should not compare favourably with the best inland course in Britain, and be vastly superior to many seaside ones."

A fire delayed matters considerably – a bunker renovation in 2015 actually uncovered a layer of ash – and MacKenzie's redesign finally came to light in 1934 and other than the recent bunker work, some welcome tree removal and some lengthening, the course remains very similar.

Sutton Coldfield is a firm fixture in the best 100 courses in England and it continues to make great strides with brilliant heathland turf and the unlikely run of three straight par 5s from the 5th to the 7th. The 11th and 12th are the pick of a tighter back nine.

Other interesting features are that electric fences surround the greens and the clubhouse and course sit in two different counties (Staffs and Warwickshire).

Visit Sutton Coldfield

The Belfry 

Location: East of the city centre, well connected by the motorways 

Green fees: £175

It's easy to be a bit sniffy about the Brabazon, the best and certainly the most famous of the three at The Belfry. It has played host to more Ryder Cups than any other course on the planet and it features some of the best-known holes anywhere.

The Brabazon was designed by Peter Alliss and Dave Thomas and opened for business in 1977 when Seve Ballesteros and Johnny Miller took on Tony Jacklin and Brian Barnes. Eight years later it held the Ryder Cup when Europe won for the first time since 1957. Then Sam Torrance rolled in the winning putt, Paul McGinley did likewise in 2002.

It has been a mainstay for the now DP World Tour as a host of young bucks now smash fairway woods onto the iconic 10th green before hitting a shortish iron onto the final green. It can play as long as 7200 yards and is the home of the PGA so expect more tour starts.

Part of the criticism is that this is an American course on British soil but there's still plenty to like about this parkland of parkland challenges. 

Visit The Belfry

Enville 

Location: 25 miles west of Birmingham  

Green fees: £120

There are not one but two excellent courses on offer at Enville and more golfers are thankfully becoming aware of this excellent Open Regional Qualifying venue.

The club began life less than 100 years ago in 1935 and the future Open champion Alf Padgham consulted and construction foreman Arthur Wrigglesworth, who had never played the game, not only designed the first nine holes as well as become the club's first professional.

A further nine holes were added, Frank Pennink turned it into 27 holes in 1972 and Enville's long-standing professional made it 36 in 1983. 

These days the Highgate and the Lodge make up the two 18s, with the former more highly thought of, but both layouts offer a mix of heathland and tree-lined holes on some great golfing sandy terrain.

The short par-4 4th is a pick of the front nine and the 7th is the last of the initial heathland holes which return for the last two holes.

This is a remarkable spot and a composite course would be something else.

Visit Enville

Copt Heath 

Location: Near Solihull, to the south-east of the city

Green fees: £95

Copt Heath will be a familiar name to many golfers, thanks to its hosting of Open qualifying and being the traditional curtain-raiser to the junior golfing season with the Peter McEvoy Trophy. 

The former Walker Cup skipper and one of the greatest brains in the game joined Copt Heath at the age of 13 and put his name to the trophy in 1981 – Justin Rose and Lee Westwood are former winners.

This is the work of Harry Vardon and Colt, but more so Colt and his bunkering – there are 101 still in place – remain a feature of this part heathland and parkland layout. More recently the Hawtree family have helped tweak this into the challenge that sits here today.

The three short holes are all excellent and, although it is a flat site, there is plenty of interest with an emphasis on restoring width to the course and it is generally regarded as being in exceptional condition.

Visit Copt Heath

Edgbaston 

Location: Very central, just a couple of miles from Birmingham New Street 

Green fees: £110

This is another Harry Colt composition that sits in a remarkable location, just a couple of miles from the city centre and beside Edgbaston Pool, an 11-acre lake and stunning nature reserve.

This is a classic parkland which boasts a brilliant front nine and a par of 33. There is a need for accuracy rather than brute strength and you will have to wait until the penultimate hole to get your teeth into a par 5. The final par is a 69 and, while the better golfing terrain comes on the front nine, the club have made great strides to bring the back nine up to a similar standard.

The fairways are wide and the greens on the small side and the clubhouse is a magnificent Grade II Georgian listed building. It has been suggested that this parcel of Birmingham land was landscaped by Capability Brown and it's a fairly unique setting given its proximity to one of the UK's most bustling city centres.

Visit Edgbaston

Whittington Heath 

Location: 25 miles north of the city

Green fees: £90

This is the oldest club in the list, dating back to 1886, though the present-day course has undergone some significant changes in recent times.

Back in the day this was a nine-holer next to Whittington Barracks and this was the original name of the club. Next year the club will celebrate the centenary of Harry Colt's extending the course to 18 holes and this routing stayed the same for next to 100 years, a brilliant heathland course that was always underrated and interesting.

Then the HS2 rail link happened, the routing of which went through the old clubhouse as well as the 9th and 18th. Others – 2, 3, 6, 7 and 10 – also had to be tweaked and new land purchased. So these days, under the stewardship of Jonathan Gaunt, the first five holes are all new, then you have the Colt green sites thereafter and you cross over the HS2 work after the 8th.  

All the bunkers have also been rebuilt, the green surrounds remodelled but the year-round turf remains and this is an excellent test that will benefit from the new holes maturing.

“We’re looking to bring back a much more open, heathland character to the golf course, with wider views of the landscape, as it would have been when Harry Colt was working here in the 1920s,” said Gaunt. “We expect that when the golf course establishes, it will begin to take on that ‘Golden Age’ look – broad expanses of hinterland with rolling features and dramatic areas of wilderness edging into the playing areas.”

Visit Whittington Heath

South Staffordshire 

Location: Just over 20 miles north-west of the city centre  

Green fees: £85

Few courses can boast a list of such leading names in course design as South Staffordshire. The club began life in 1892 before moving in 1908 to where it resides today with Harry Vardon laying out the original course. 

Harry Colt, who has had a huge hand in shaping golf in this part of the country, made further improvements and James Braid combined the 1st and 2nd holes as well as adding in a new 7th and 8th in 1936. 

Fred Hawtree and Donald Steel have also worked on the course and today it measures a shade over 6,500 yards and plays to a par of 71.

The big other big name linked to the course is its head professional, Peter Baker, one of the stars of the 1993 Ryder Cup side at the nearby Belfry and these days one of the leading lights on the Legends Tour. Unsurprisingly he holds the course record of 63, set in a pro-am in 2010.

The 17th is generally regarded as the stand-out hole and Baker warns anyone on the planner to never concede a putt on this hole.

An out-and-back parkland that will nicely complement any golfing getaway to this part of the world.

Visit South Staffordshire