Alton

Hampshire has a long and quietly serious relationship with golf, and Alton Golf Club sits within that tradition as a members' course serving a market town that sits at the eastern edge of the South Downs National Park. The surrounding countryside is chalk downland and ancient woodland, the kind of rolling, open terrain that lends itself naturally to golf — firm underfoot in summer, exposed to the breeze, with views that remind you you're on the North Hampshire Downs rather than a manufactured landscape.

A par 68 over 18 holes signals a layout that leans on precision over length, rewarding placement, course management, and short-game creativity rather than raw power. Courses built to this par tend to feature a concentration of shorter par 4s and a pair of par 3s that demand proper ball-striking, where misjudging a club by a fraction costs more than spraying a driver on a wide-open hole ever would.

Alton itself is a pleasant, unhurried town with good connections to both the South Downs and the wider Hampshire countryside — the kind of place where a round of golf fits naturally into a day spent outdoors.