Handsworth Golf Club

Overview: Handsworth Golf Club is at Sunningdale Close in Handsworth Wood, about three miles from the centre of Birmingham. The parkland course measures roughly 6,360 yards to a par of 70, with tight tree-lined fairways, water hazards and more than seventy bunkers. Few courses this close to a major city feel so enclosed by trees, and the bunkering keeps the scoring honest. The River Tame and its flood management works have shaped recent changes, giving the course a continuing design challenge as well as a historic one. It remains parkland in character, but different sections show the influence of several generations of architects.

History: Handsworth Golf Club was established in 1895 by the Reverend J. R. Worthington and E. J. Abbott, and it soon moved to its current ground. Harry Colt remodelled the course in 1920. Around 2018, Jonathan Gaunt altered several holes to make space for a flood management scheme on the nearby River Tame, adding a contemporary layer to the route’s history.

Did You Know? The recent changes at Handsworth were driven by flood management rather than fashion: new holes had to be fitted around storage works intended to protect homes downstream on the Tame.