Addington Palace Golf Club

Addington Palace Golf Club: with its distinguished history, and sitting alongside the perhaps better known Addington Golf Club, Addington Palace is home to another of London's excellently maintained and thoroughly absorbing layouts.

In the past, the then par-3 1st and par-5 18th (now the 10th and 9th respectively) were played within a few short paces of the quadrangular clubhouse (in the middle of which sits a practice putting green). The layout now starts and finishes a couple of hundred yards from the clubhouse, after the two nine-hole loops were switched around in 2023.

Both nines are characterised by an array of generally good-width parkland/heathland holes, many with gloriously elevated tee boxes. But be careful ... in the mix are also a few notoriously tight and testing short par-4s, notably the 6th (Short & Sweet), 12th (Bobby Locke) and 13th (London View). The 13th speaks for itself, while the 12th requires one of the tightest uphill approach shots you'll find anywhere in the game of golf.

Throughout, there is plenty of elevation change to the holes, with the rolling fairways follow the terrain's naturally folding contours. You'll need both length and accuracy to cope with the long par-4 1st (Lime Tree) and 11th (Gladings Folly), which run uphill and parallel with each other.

Mature trees and woodland surround the course for the most part, while the former bishops' palace (a large three-tier mansion house) separates most of the easterly front-nine and westerly back-nine. Several holes offer lovely views of the palace, with the greens of the par-4 2nd (Palace View), par-3 10th (Clocktower) and gloriously doglegging downhill par-5 18th (Primrose Hill) reverently sitting in the Palace's front garden.