Garforth

Founded in 1913, Garforth Golf Club sits on the eastern fringes of Leeds in the kind of gently rolling Yorkshire countryside that suits the game well — open enough to catch the prevailing wind, varied enough to keep every round honest. The club has built more than a century of member history on this ground, and that longevity shows in the maturity of the tree-lined fairways and the unhurried rhythms of a genuine community club.

At par 70, the layout leans shorter than a traditional Yorkshire moorland test, but that doesn't mean it plays easily. Courses of this par are typically built around a pair of par 5s and demand precision over power — miss the fairways here and the trees make recovery work properly difficult. Wind off the open stretches of the Vale of York can shift the challenge considerably from one day to the next.

Leeds has always been well-served for golf, with a cluster of respected members' clubs ringing the city. Garforth occupies a quiet but established place in that local scene — the kind of course where the standard of the membership is high and visitors are welcomed into a club that takes its golf seriously.