Woburn Golf Club Duke’s Course Review

Nov 23, 2018

Woburn Golf Club Duke's Course Review - The elder statesman of three fabulous tree-lined courses on the estate

Woburn Golf Club Duke’s Course Review

Green Fee Range: £169-£179

Medal Tee: Par 72 – 6,976 Yards

Visitor Times: Monday to Friday excluding bank holidays

Opened in 1976, the Duke’s Course at Woburn is an extremely attractive layout with springy fairways lined by bracken, birch, heather and gorse. It’s a track that sits so comfortably in its surrounds, it feels it has always existed.

Related: Top 100 Courses UK and Ireland

The Duke’s is where it all began on the Duke of Bedford’s Woburn Estate, with Charles Lawrie crafting the first of today’s three courses through avenues of pine, birch and chestnut in 1976.

Within three years it had found its way onto the European Tour schedule, going on to host the British Masters 16 times over the next 23 years.

Many a course has since been referred to as ‘Woburnesque’, and indeed nowhere really does the spendour of mature fairway avenues better, hence Woburn being the only place other than St Andrews with three courses in our Top 100.

A view of the par 3, 3rd hole on the Dukes Course at Woburn (Getty Images)

The Duke’s boasts a very pretty start, a demanding middle section then a tricky run for home where accuracy is often of more use than distance as you seek to place your ball in the ideal spot over the closing three doglegs.

Perhaps the most majestic of the holes falls early on in the short-but-delightful downhill par-3 3rd, bathed in robes of purple glory when the rhododendrons are in bloom, and the magnificent par 4 that follows playing round and up to a challenging two-tier green sheltering in a secluded arbour. Precision is most definitely the name of the game on the Duke’s course.

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