Play Competitive Golf in the West Midlands of England

The West Midlands runs one of the most varied amateur open programmes in England, with singles, pairs, mixed and team events staged from spring through autumn across courses that sit much higher in the rankings than the region’s reputation suggests. Five traditional counties meet here — Herefordshire, Shropshire, Staffordshire, Warwickshire and Worcestershire — and between them they cover Herbert Fowler heathland on the Cannock Chase escarpment, Harry Colt parkland a mile from Birmingham city centre, a Harry Vardon championship layout in the Sutton Coldfield estates, and a James Braid course laid out inside a working National Hunt racecourse. Entry standards are typically open to all handicaps, and many clubs run long-established open weeks alongside their headline singles and mixed-pairs events.

The West Midlands is one of English golf’s most consistently underestimated regions. While the headlines tend to go to the coastal links of Lancashire and Kent, the heart of England quietly contains an extraordinary concentration of work by the game’s great architects — Herbert Fowler, Harry Vardon, Harry Colt, James Braid and Alister MacKenzie have all shaped courses in these five counties. The terrain shifts dramatically as you move across the region: sandy heathland on the Cannock Chase ridge, mature parkland in the river valleys around Birmingham, rolling rural ground in Worcestershire and Herefordshire, and the inland-links sand-and-gravel base of southern Shropshire. The result, for visiting amateurs, is a stretch of clubs that punch well above their reputation and run open competitions that combine strong fields with genuine value for money.

Beau Desert Golf Club — “Beautiful Wilderness” — sits high on the Cannock Chase Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty in Staffordshire and is widely regarded as the finest heathland course in the Midlands. The course was commissioned by the Marquess of Anglesey and laid out by Herbert Fowler in 1912, placing it firmly alongside Fowler’s other masterpieces at Walton Heath, Saunton and The Berkshire. The routing climbs and falls across silver birch, heather and gorse, with a celebrated set of plateau greens whose sand and gravel came directly from the site itself. Modest at around 6,470 yards off the white tees, Beau Desert defends itself with elevation changes, severe green contours and some of the most testing short holes in the region — a slope rating of 139 tells the story. Recent woodland management has restored much of the heathland character that defined the course in Bernard Darwin’s day, and Beau Desert hosts the 2026 English Men’s Amateur Championship, the strongest possible endorsement of where the club currently stands.

Edgbaston Golf Club sits barely a mile from the centre of Birmingham yet feels entirely separate from the city — its 144 acres form part of a Conservation Area, a Site of Special Scientific Interest and a nature reserve, with the Grade II listed Edgbaston Hall (built 1717, attributed parkland by Capability Brown) serving as the clubhouse. Founded in 1896 and moved to its present site in 1936, the course is thought to be Harry Colt’s final solo design. At 6,128 yards and par 69 it is short by modern standards, but a slope rating of 132 and small, tightly contoured greens make it one of the most exacting tests of approach play in the region. The bunkers were restored to Colt’s original aesthetic in 2019, and the course is now a regular fixture on the NCG Top 100s Tour. Opens here attract strong fields drawn by both the pedigree of the design and the sheer surprise of finding it in the middle of a city.

Little Aston Golf Club in Sutton Coldfield is the West Midlands’ most decorated parkland championship venue. Laid out in 1908 by Harry Vardon on land formerly part of the Little Aston Hall estate, the course was significantly enhanced from 1911 onwards by Harry Colt, whose distinctive diagonal bunkering at the 4th, 6th, 7th, 14th and 15th remains a defining feature. Stretching to around 6,800 yards on a sand-and-gravel subsoil, with a lake guarding the 17th, Little Aston has hosted the English Amateur four times, the Brabazon Trophy three times, and the British Masters on five occasions between 1947 and 1969. It was also Open Qualifying venue in recent years and staged the Ladies Home Internationals in 2017. The famously flower-bedded putting green is worth a visit on its own — Henry Cotton called the fairways here the best in the world.

Ludlow Golf Club is one of England’s most unusual venues — its 18 holes sit entirely within the infield of Ludlow Racecourse, with the B4365 crossing the racing oval at three points. Founded in 1889, it is the oldest course in the Union of Shropshire and Herefordshire, and was developed into a full 18-hole layout in 1927 by James Braid, five-time Open Champion, whose recommendations included the introduction of 45 bunkers. The course sits on free-draining sand and gravel beneath Brown Clee Hill in the Shropshire Hills AONB, plays just over 6,200 yards to a par of 70, and is regularly described as one of the driest and most consistently playable courses in the three border counties. The “old field” it occupies still shows Bronze Age burial mounds behind the 9th and 15th greens. With well-priced opens, fast true greens, and the unmistakable atmosphere of golf inside a racecourse, Ludlow is a genuine one-off.

Moseley Golf Club, founded in 1892 in King’s Heath on the southern edge of Birmingham, is another Harry Colt parkland gem — the course was laid out by Colt in 1920 and much of his original design remains in play today. Measuring 6,292 yards to a par of 70, it has gently undulating fairways framed by mature trees, attractive water features, and quick, true greens that are noted by visitors as among the best in the Midlands. The club has a charming literary footnote: J.R.R. Tolkien’s uncle William was a founder member and won the club’s very first medal competition in September 1893, and the Sarehole Mill and Moseley Bog landscapes that inspired The Shire sit a short walk away. Dr Frank Stableford, who invented the scoring system used worldwide today, is also linked with the club. Open competitions at Moseley draw entries from across the West Midlands and the course consistently features in regional top-100 rankings.

Handsworth Golf Club, founded in 1895 just three miles from Birmingham city centre, completes a remarkable trio of Harry Colt designs in the area — Colt redesigned the original layout in 1920 and much of that work survived largely unchanged for nearly a century, until Jonathan Gaunt added three new holes (11, 12 and 13) as part of significant recent investment. The 6,300-yard par-70 parkland course runs through mature woodland in the Sandwell Valley, with a large fishing lake in front of the clubhouse, gentle undulations and notably tight driving holes. The clubhouse dates to 1906 and was extensively refurbished around its centenary. The club is currently rated inside the top 10 in the Warwickshire and West Midlands rankings and runs a busy open competition calendar that benefits from genuinely friendly hospitality, an excellent practice ground and surprisingly approachable green fees for the standard of course on offer.

The five counties of the West Midlands offer an unusually rich spread of post-round options. Shropshire has the half-timbered streets of Ludlow and Shrewsbury and the Long Mynd and Stiperstones for walkers; Worcestershire and Herefordshire add the Malvern Hills, the cathedral cities of Worcester and Hereford, and some of England’s most productive cider country. In Staffordshire, Cannock Chase itself is an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, and Lichfield’s three-spired cathedral and Samuel Johnson birthplace are within easy reach of the major courses. Warwickshire offers Stratford-upon-Avon and Warwick Castle, and Birmingham — now a serious food and music destination — provides the urban contrast, with the Bullring, the Jewellery Quarter and a refurbished canal network.

For visiting golfers it adds up to a region with unusual breadth: an inland-links round in the morning at Ludlow, a Harry Colt parkland in the afternoon at Moseley or Edgbaston, an evening in a Black Country pub or a Stratford theatre — the kind of itinerary that's much easier to put together here than the region’s reputation suggests.