A county shaped by parkland
Leicestershire's golf is built on parkland. Of the county's twenty-one clubs, thirteen are parkland courses, spread from Leicester itself out to Lutterworth, Loughborough and Melton Mowbray. That means tree-lined fairways, streams and ditches rather than dunes, and courses that reward accuracy off the tee more than raw length. Kibworth Golf Club, founded in 1904 and relocated to its current Weir Road site in 1960, is a good example: a stream crosses eight of its holes, and the club was England Golf's Men's Champion Club in 2023, which says something about the standard hiding within all that parkland calm. Nearby, Lutterworth Golf Club sits astride the River Swift with ditches and water in play throughout, and uses a traffic-light system to flag course conditions in wet weather — a practical touch on ground that can hold water.
Some of the parkland courses carry unusual quirks. Beedles Lake, in Leicester, was built on a former landfill site and uses an ash root-zone for its greens, which keeps the course playable year-round without resorting to temporary greens — useful when the club is handling something like 50,000 rounds a year. It added a nine-hole par-3 course, the Little Owl, in 2014. Melton Mowbray Golf Club, meanwhile, still shows rig-and-furrow fairways on four holes, a reminder of the land's farming past before the course was laid out over the Wolds.
The heathland exception: Charnwood Forest
Two clubs break the parkland pattern, and both sit in Charnwood Forest, north-west of Leicester. Charnwood Forest Golf Club, founded in 1890, is the oldest club in the county and one of its most unusual: a nine-hole heathland layout built among the Hanging Stone Rocks, reckoned to be around 620 million years old and among the oldest exposed rock in Europe. The land's Site of Special Scientific Interest status and its heather, gorse and elevation give it all-year playability that low-lying parkland can't match, and James Braid's influence is felt in the routing. Longcliffe Golf Club, also in the forest and founded in 1906, has been picked out by Golf Monthly as among the best courses in Leicestershire and the wider East Midlands, its holes separated by mature trees with heather and gorse framing genuinely quick greens.
Names worth knowing
Willesley Park, at Ashby-de-la-Zouch, has the strongest design pedigree in the county: laid out originally by James Braid in 1920 and later remodelled by Dr Alister MacKenzie, the architect behind Augusta National. The avenue of lime trees on the first hole and a Diana statue on the ninth fairway, renewed in 2000, are both survivors of that history. At Kirby Muxloe, founded in 1893, the signature fifth hole has a tee set 100 yards off the main course, and the club has hosted two England Golf amateur championships, in 2016 and 2018. Lingdale, between Bradgate Park and Beacon Hill, drew praise from Peter Alliss and from Tony Jacklin, who rated its opening three holes among the toughest in the Midlands. Rothley Park, founded in 1911 and still going after more than a century, holds a Guinness World Record among its list of claims.
Playing around the county
Green fees start from around £15, which makes sampling a few different clubs an affordable way to spend a few weekends. Leicester itself has the densest cluster of courses — Beedles Lake, Birstall, Cosby, Glen Gorse, Kirby Muxloe, Rothley Park, Scraptoft and Whetstone are all within reach of the city — while Loughborough offers both the heathland of Charnwood Forest and Longcliffe alongside the parkland of Lingdale. Lutterworth, Melton Mowbray, Hinckley and Ashby-de-la-Zouch each have their own club, and newer arrivals such as Nineteen Golf Club in Oadby, Six Hills in Melton Mowbray and True Performance Golf in Castle Donington add further options for anyone working through the county's courses one at a time.