Castle Royle

Castle Royle sits within the Hook End estate in Berkshire — the former grounds of a Victorian country house that lend the course an unmistakable sense of grandeur and history. Designed by Nick Faldo and his design partner Steve Smyers, and opened in 1996, it was one of Faldo's earliest and most ambitious design projects in the UK. The layout makes intelligent use of the estate's mature woodland, gentle contours, and a series of lakes that come into play on several holes, creating a course that rewards precision and strategic thinking over brute force.

The private members' club atmosphere here is genuinely distinctive. The converted mansion serves as the clubhouse, and the whole property carries that rare feeling of playing golf somewhere that existed for other grand purposes long before a fairway was ever cut.

Berkshire is serious golf country, home to some of England's most respected heathland and parkland layouts, and Castle Royle holds its own in that competitive company — a well-regarded parkland test with a character shaped equally by its architect's eye and its estate's storied past.