Market Harborough

Market Harborough Golf Club sits on the border country between Leicestershire and Northamptonshire, in the rolling pastoral landscape that characterises this quietly underrated stretch of the English Midlands. The town itself is a handsome market settlement with deep agricultural roots, and the surrounding countryside — open farmland cut through by hedgerows and gentle valleys — provides the kind of unhurried English setting that suits a members' club where the game is taken seriously but not solemnly.

A par 70 signals a layout that leans on precision over power, typically meaning a pair of par 5s replaced by additional testing two-shotters or demanding short holes. Players who expect to overpower the course with length tend to find themselves humbled; those who work the ball and manage their game around the greens tend to score better than their first impression suggests.

This is Midlands club golf at its most authentic — a course serving a tight-knit community of members, with the kind of character that accumulates over decades rather than being designed in from day one.