A compact county with a strong parkland identity
Enfield doesn't have much land given over to golf compared with some English counties, but what it has is worth knowing well. All six clubs here sit on parkland, spread across Barnet, Edmonton and Enfield itself, plus a scattering into London proper. There's no heathland or links to speak of, so the golf follows a consistent theme: mature trees, defined fairways, and courses that reward accuracy over raw length. It makes for a manageable county to explore in a run of weekends, since the clubs sit close together on the northern edge of the city, several of them within a short drive of the M25.
The parkland setting also means the courses have had decades to mature. Bush Hill Park, founded in 1896, is one of the older clubs in the area and occupies around 100 acres of North London suburbs. It picked up a Tripadvisor Travelers' Choice Award and GEO Certification in 2025, and is currently ranked as the 4th best course in Middlesex, a reasonable marker for a club well into its second century.
Design pedigree: Colt, Braid and MacKenzie
What lifts Enfield's golf above the ordinary is the calibre of the architects who worked here during golf's Golden Age. Crews Hill, founded in 1920 out in the countryside beyond the town of Enfield, was laid out by Harry Colt and remains oak and tree-lined, with a balcony view that stretches back across London on a clear day. It's regularly named among the top ten courses in Middlesex.
Enfield Golf Club itself was designed by James Braid, the five-time Open Champion whose fingerprints are on courses across Britain. His tree-lined fairways here are threaded by the Salmons Brook, and the course carries a genuine piece of history at the back of the 17th green in the form of the Moat, an English Heritage site. The club sits just inside the M25, easily reached from Junctions 24 or 25, which makes it a natural stop for golfers travelling in from Hertfordshire or Essex.
The standout, though, is Hadley Wood in Barnet. Founded in 1922 and designed by Dr Alister MacKenzie, it's recognised as one of his Golden Age masterpieces and holds a Top 100 ranking. The boldly contoured greens are the clearest signature of MacKenzie's hand, set within mature parkland just north of the capital. Hadley Wood Artisans, also based in Barnet, plays over the same parkland ground.
Water, valleys and where to tee off
Not every course in Enfield is about tree-lined calm. Leaside, in Edmonton, sits in the River Lee valley and brings a different challenge, with narrow fairways and large lake features that push the River Lee into play throughout the round. It's a useful contrast to the more classically wooded parkland found elsewhere in the county, and worth a visit if you want a test that leans more on water management than on driving accuracy.
Taken together, the six clubs give Enfield a clear character: parkland golf with real architectural weight behind it, courses shaped by Colt, Braid and MacKenzie sitting a short drive from central London. For a club golfer weighing up where to play on the capital's northern edge, that combination of pedigree and accessibility is hard to overlook, and a few rounds across Barnet, Edmonton and Enfield will give a fair sense of what North London parkland golf is about.