A county built on parkland
Buckinghamshire's golf is overwhelmingly a parkland story. Of the 37 clubs across the county, 24 are classified as parkland, set among the wooded, undulating countryside that runs from the M40 corridor up into the Chilterns. Towns such as Beaconsfield, Amersham, Denham and Gerrards Cross each have a club within easy reach, and the courses share a family likeness: mature trees, gently rolling terrain and, in many cases, chalk subsoil that drains well through the winter months. Beaconsfield Golf Club, laid out by Harry Colt in 1913 through mixed woodland, is regularly rated one of the top parkland courses in the country and is generally reckoned among the best four in the county, with unusually large, well-bunkered greens. Colt also had a hand at Denham, founded in 1910, where the course sits on free-draining ground and the local railway station was named after the club itself. More recently, Denham's neighbour The Buckinghamshire has built a reputation of its own, hosting Ladies European Tour events on a course threaded along the River Colne with lakes and ancient trees.
Elsewhere the parkland theme takes different forms. Aylesbury Vale, near Leighton Buzzard, opened in 1991 with a brook running through the layout and greens that draw regular praise from members. Buckingham Golf Club started life as a nine-hole course in 1914 before its 1970s extension to eighteen, and had all its greens rebuilt to USGA specification in 2004. Harewood Downs, above Amersham, has done similar work, with USGA-spec greens across all eighteen holes and forty new bunkers reshaped by Mackenzie & Ebert, set against views over the Misbourne valley that Gerrards Cross, its close neighbour, also shares.
Heathland and downland variety
Away from the parkland majority, Buckinghamshire has smaller pockets of heathland and downs golf that reward seeking out. Flackwell Heath, near High Wycombe, dates to 1902 and carries the fingerprints of several designers over the decades — James Sherlock's original nine, John Turner's second, Harry Colt's 1920s alterations and F. W. Hawtree's 1964 rework — with greens good enough to earn praise from Bernard Darwin back in 1923. Chesham & Ley Hill is the county's rare nine-hole heathland course, laid out on common land among oak woodland, with small greens and tight tee shots that make its bluebell-lined fairways as testing as they are attractive in late spring. On the downs side, Ellesborough sits on chalk downland at the foot of the Chilterns near Aylesbury, a James Braid design from 1906 known for fast, true greens and reciprocal links through the Association of James Braid Courses. Harleyford, above the Thames near Marlow, is a Donald Steel downland course in an area of outstanding natural beauty and is the home club of Tyrrell Hatton.
Short courses, curiosities and value
Buckinghamshire also has a good spread of nine-hole and lower-key options worth knowing about. Farnham Park in Slough was designed by three-time Open champion Sir Henry Cotton on former hunting land beside a medieval castle, and is the third course to have occupied the site since 1896. Hedsor, near High Wycombe, occupies a flat former airfield complete with a surviving grass runway and gorse-lined moorland vegetation, while Ivinghoe and Princes Risborough offer compact nine-hole golf in the Chiltern Hills for those short on time. With green fees starting from around £12, the county doesn't demand a big budget to get out and play, and the range of courses — from Colt's woodland parkland at Beaconsfield to the chalk downs at Ellesborough — means the golf changes character noticeably as you move across it. For a county without a coastline, that's a decent trick to pull off.