Greenwich packs an outsized amount of golfing history into a small stretch of South East London. There are only four clubs here, clustered around Eltham and Shooters Hill, but one of them can lay claim to being the oldest golf club in England, and the parkland golf on offer is more varied and interesting than the numbers might suggest.
Royal Blackheath: golf's long memory
Royal Blackheath Golf Club, founded in 1608, is the standout. Its Grade I listed clubhouse and status as one of the most historic clubs in the world give it a weight that few English courses can match. The course itself has been shaped over three distinct eras: Tom Dunn laid out work in 1892, James Braid — one of the game's Great Triumvirate — refined it in the late 1920s, and Ken Moodie brought it up to date in 2014. Set among mature South East London parkland, it plays as a genuine walk through golf history rather than a museum piece. Alongside it, Royal Blackheath Artisans Golf Club offers its own 18-hole parkland round in Eltham, a reminder that this small pocket of London has supported more than one club under the same storied banner.
Eltham Warren and the short game
Also in Eltham, Eltham Warren Golf Club has been going since 1890 and wears its 130-plus years lightly. It's known as a short course, which makes it a good option for club golfers who want a proper test without needing all afternoon, or for those working on accuracy over length rather than raw distance.
Shooters Hill: views, Amen Corner, and a wartime past
A short distance away, Shooters Hill Golf Club sits on the slopes it's named after, looking out over the North Kent countryside from close to Blackheath. Willie Park laid the course out in 1907, and Harris and Colt remodelled it in the 1930s, work that shaped the stretch of holes 9, 10 and 11 now known locally as Amen Corner. The club has some genuinely good stories attached to it: Bobby Locke played an exhibition match here in 1951 and set a course record of 65, and during the Second World War the course was requisitioned for an anti-aircraft battery and a prisoner of war camp. That's a lot of history packed into 18 holes on a hillside in South East London.
What to expect on the course
All three of the county's identified course types are parkland, so golf in Greenwich means tree-lined fairways, mature landscaping and courses that reward course management over brute force. There's no links or heathland character here — this is inner London parkland golf, shaped by decades (in Royal Blackheath's case, centuries) of design changes by some notable names. Green fees start from around £25, which is good value given the pedigree of some of these courses, particularly Royal Blackheath's design lineage running from Dunn through Braid to Moodie.
For a visiting club golfer, a trip to Greenwich golf is really a trip to two areas: Eltham, home to Royal Blackheath, Royal Blackheath Artisans and Eltham Warren, and Shooters Hill, standing slightly apart with its own hilltop setting and views. Between them they offer a compact but genuinely characterful slice of London golf — short enough in geography to combine two rounds in a weekend, and deep enough in history that you'll be walking fairways with four centuries of stories behind them.