Littlestone Championship

Few links courses in England carry the quiet authority that Littlestone does. Founded in 1888, it ranks among the oldest clubs on the Kent coast, and its Championship layout has earned genuine respect on the national stage — serving as a regional qualifier for The Open Championship and hosting significant amateur events over the decades. The course was laid out across classic shingle and duneland terrain, and subsequent work has refined it without softening its essential character.

Romney Marsh stretches inland from here, a peculiarly flat and windswept corner of Kent that feels unlike anywhere else in the country. The sea is never far away, and the prevailing winds off the English Channel mean the course plays differently on almost every visit. Littlestone's greens are famously demanding — quick, subtly contoured, and positioned to punish the approach that lands on the wrong side of the hole.

This is links golf at its most traditional: bump-and-run, ground game, course management over raw power. Visitors who expect a manicured parkland experience will be quickly, pleasantly corrected.