A borough built on parkland
Bromley sits on the southern fringe of London where the suburbs give way to Kent's rolling downland, and its golf reflects that in-between geography. Of the thirteen clubs across the borough, nine are parkland courses, laid out through mature woodland, old estate grounds and gentle farmland rather than the heath or links you'd find further out. Play here and you're mostly dealing with tree-lined fairways, well-established greens and the kind of settled, leafy surroundings that come from courses which have been in the same spot for well over a century. Golf is spread across Beckenham, Biggin Hill, Bromley itself, Chislehurst, Downe, Orpington and Shortlands, so there's rarely a long drive between one round and the next.
Historic clubs with real pedigree
Chislehurst Golf Club, founded in 1894 and laid out by Harry S Colt on 70 acres around the Camden Place mansion, is as good a starting point as any. The mansion's Georgian and French chateau architecture gives the clubhouse real presence, and the course still hosts county fixtures; Liam Burns's course record of 58, set in 2016, gives some sense of how it can play in the right conditions. A short distance away in Bromley, Sundridge Park and its associated Artisans club share a remarkable story: founded in 1901 by A J Balfour and designed jointly by Willie Park Jnr and James Braid, the grounds take in the Grade 1 listed Sundridge Park Mansion and woodland either side of the Kyd Brook. Both clubs point to Alf Padgham, their club professional who won The Open in 1936, and to Alfie Plant, whose European Amateur title and Silver Medal at The Open in 2017 keep the connection to top-level golf current. The course has also been used as an Open Championship qualifying venue and hosts a leading amateur ranking event each year.
Langley Park in Beckenham adds another significant name to the list: John Henry Taylor, five-time Open Champion, designed the course when the club was founded in 1910, and it later served as a Regional Open Qualifying venue. Reciprocal arrangements with seven other clubs make it a useful base if you like to mix up where you play. For something older still, Shortlands Golf Club, founded in 1894 on flat London gravel, began life as Beckenham Ladies Golf Club and was one of the first courses in the country permitted to play on Sundays, back in 1919. It survived bomb damage in the Second World War and still plays tight, with narrow fairways and internal out of bounds that punish a loose swing more than the yardage suggests.
Countryside courses and modern practice facilities
West Kent Golf Club, out at Downe near Down House, was designed by W H Fowler and J F Abercrombie, the pair behind The Berkshire, Walton Heath and Coombe Hill, and it shows in the undulating mix of woodland, downland and parkland across the round. Its ladies' course, at just under 6,000 yards, is the longest in Kent. Cherry Lodge in Biggin Hill sits on land farmed since 1850 and offers proper countryside views; a £1.5 million remodel in 2014 brought the course down from its original par of 75 to a more conventional par 72. High Elms, in the country park of the same name in Orpington, is worth playing for the 13th alone, a par 3 regularly named among the toughest short holes in Britain, backed by tight, tree-lined fairways throughout.
For practice and family golf, Chelsfield Lakes Golf Centre in Orpington runs an 18-hole Lakes Course alongside a 9-hole Vista Course and a driving range with digital rounds, while Orpington Golf Centre Cray Valley is one of the larger facilities of its kind in England and runs the Get Active in Golf junior programme. Add the short, flat nine at Bromley Golf Club and there's a genuine range here, from quick evening nines to full historic rounds with Open connections behind them.