Hampshire's golf is shaped by its chalk. Run a line from Alresford down through Winchester to Corhampton and you're tracing the downland spine that gives the county some of its oldest and best-draining courses. Alresford Golf Club, founded in 1890, sits on Hampshire chalk downland near the South Downs and still plays all year round without the mud that troubles heavier soils. Corhampton, founded a year later in 1891 south-east of Winchester, makes the same point from a slightly lower vantage: chalk foundations, exceptional drainage, and views across hills and woodland that don't change much with the seasons. Between them these two rank among the oldest clubs in the county, and both remain proof that downland golf in Hampshire is as much about the turf underfoot as the scenery.
Parkland is the dominant type here by a wide margin — 19 of the courses in the county fall into that category against seven downs, four heathland, three links and two coastal. That mix tells you most rounds in Hampshire will be played among trees and manicured fairways rather than dunes or heather, though the exceptions are worth seeking out. James Braid, five times Open champion, left his mark twice: at Alton Golf Club, a nine-holer from 1908 set in the rolling North-East Hampshire countryside, and at Hockley Golf Club near Winchester, laid out on a Scheduled Ancient Monument with Bronze Age and Roman history beneath the fairways and a Tank Cup trophy dating back to the Tank Corps Battalion. Hockley has been owned by Winchester College since 1955, which adds another layer to a course already carrying centuries of history.
Heathland Around Aldershot and the New Forest
The heathland courses cluster towards the Surrey border and into the New Forest, and this is where Harry Colt's influence is strongest. Blackmoor Golf Club at Bordon, dating from 1913, is Colt heathland at its most classic — heather, pine, birch and oak, and a course good enough to have been an Open Championship regional qualifier between 1998 and 2003. It still hosts the Selborne Salver, a leading amateur event running since 1976. Colt also had a hand at Brokenhurst Manor, inside the New Forest National Park at Brockenhurst, and later at Barton-on-Sea on the coast near New Milton, where his original 1932 design was extended with newer holes by J. Hamilton Stutt in 1992 — 27 holes in total on a clifftop with views out to the Isle of Wight and Christchurch Bay. The Army Golf Club at Aldershot adds another heathland option, rated among the county's best and set up with five ability tees to suit a wide range of games.
Links Golf and the Coast
Proper links golf in Hampshire is scarce but genuine. Hayling Golf Club, on Hayling Island and designed by Tom Simpson in 1883, sits within a Site of Special Scientific Interest and is regarded as a Top 100 course in Great Britain and Ireland — seaside turf that drains fast and plays firm most of the year. Along the water at Gosport, Gosport & Stokes Bay Golf Club is a nine-hole links from 1885 with a claim to fame beyond its holes: it's credited as the origin of the term