Leicestershire Golf Club - The Leicestershire

The Leicestershire Golf Club is one of Leicester’s oldest and most historically significant golf clubs, combining a mature parkland course with more than 135 years of golfing history. Founded in 1890, the club is based on Evington Lane around two miles from Leicester city centre, yet the course sits within one of the city’s protected green wedges alongside Shady Lane Arboretum. Mature trees, old ridge-and-furrow fairways and gently changing ground give the course a character that feels far removed from the surrounding city.

The story of The Leicestershire began in June 1890, when a group of prominent Leicester businessmen met at the Oadby home of John Arthur Corah of the Corah & Sons hosiery company. They unanimously agreed to establish Leicester Golf Club, with Joseph Goddard becoming its first president. Golf was initially played inside the perimeter of the newly relocated Leicester Racecourse at Oadby before the growing club began looking for somewhere that could support a more substantial course.

By 1892, playing rights had been secured over grazing land on either side of Evington Brook, close to the club’s present home. A temporary 14-hole course was created and 20-year-old George Smith became the club’s first professional. Over the following two years a more permanent nine-hole layout and wooden clubhouse were constructed. In 1894 the club adopted the name The Leicestershire Golf Club, and the new course was officially opened with a 36-hole exhibition match between Open champion Sandy Herd and George Smith. The club’s official history provides a detailed timeline of how the course developed from those early beginnings.

The move to 18 holes followed quickly. A larger course was formally opened in 1899 with another exhibition match involving leading professionals of the era. It marked the beginning of a period in which The Leicestershire would attract the attention of some of the most important players and architects in British golf.

Between 1910 and 1912, five-time Open champion James Braid carried out improvements to the course. Braid became one of Britain’s most prolific golf architects and his involvement at The Leicestershire began a remarkable succession of designers who would leave their mark on the layout. In 1922, another giant of golf architecture, Harry Colt, was brought in to advise on further improvements.

The course changed again in the 1930s. Major Charles MacKenzie was commissioned in 1935 to redesign and extend the layout, increasing its length from 5,906 yards to 6,593 yards. The revised course opened the following year. Rather than having a single architect responsible for everything golfers see today, The Leicestershire has gradually evolved through the ideas of several generations of course designers, which is a large part of what makes it interesting to play.

The Second World War brought a very different challenge. More than 25 acres of the course were ploughed for food production, sheep returned to graze the land and part of the clubhouse was occupied by the Home Guard. When the war ended, significant restoration was needed before the course could return to anything approaching its previous condition. By 1947 the sheep and protective barbed wire around the greens had finally gone and the process of rebuilding the golf course was well underway.

The club faced another major threat after the war when plans for Leicester’s ring road cut across the western side of the property. The proposals meant losing the existing clubhouse, practice grounds and several important parts of the course. New land was acquired towards Shady Lane and, in 1961, golf architect C.K. Cotton was asked to redesign the layout around the land that would remain available.

Construction of the revised course began in the 1960s alongside the development of a new clubhouse. The new clubhouse opened in December 1967 and the first major event on the reconstructed course was an exhibition featuring some of the leading British professionals of the period. The circular clubhouse remains one of the more recognisable features of The Leicestershire today, looking out across the surrounding course.

The modern layout plays to a par of 70 and stretches to around 6,450 yards from the back tees. That puts it at a sensible length for modern club golf, but The Leicestershire is not a course where distance automatically produces a good score. Mature trees define many of the fairways, while natural contours and strategic bunkering make the position of the tee shot important when setting up the next shot.

One of the more unusual characteristics is the survival of historic ridge-and-furrow across parts of the property. These contours were created by centuries-old agricultural practices and give some fairways a natural movement that would rarely be deliberately constructed on a modern golf course. A drive that appears perfectly positioned can therefore leave a slightly uneven stance, while approaches need to account for the way the ground can move the ball after landing.

That natural ground is a major reason The Leicestershire remains interesting despite sitting within a city. Rather than feeling like a course shaped entirely by machinery, there are sections where the old landscape still dictates how a golfer needs to play. It encourages creativity and rewards golfers who can adjust to different lies rather than expecting every fairway to provide a perfectly flat stance.

The greens have undergone a very different form of development. During the 1990s the club made the significant decision to reconstruct its putting surfaces using modern sand-based foundations while retaining and replacing the original turf. The project improved drainage considerably and helped establish the consistent year-round putting surfaces the club continues to prioritise today.

The course has continued changing even in recent years. Feedback from golfers during the 2010s suggested that the layout could feel particularly demanding without any par fives. New tee positions were subsequently developed on the 6th and 9th, creating two par fives and increasing the championship layout to approximately 6,456 yards and par 70. The revised course was used when England Golf brought the Logan Trophy to The Leicestershire in 2019.

England Golf returned in 2022 when the club hosted the English Men’s Senior Amateur Championship. Staging national championships is a useful indication of the type of challenge The Leicestershire provides. It is playable for everyday club golfers, but its tree-lined corridors, strong greens and emphasis on controlling where the ball finishes are capable of testing accomplished amateur players as well.

That balance is one of the strongest reasons to play the course. Golfers do not need enormous driving distance to enjoy The Leicestershire, and there are opportunities to score when the ball is kept in play. However, repeatedly missing fairways can quickly create problems because mature trees restrict angles into the greens. A conservative tee shot to the correct part of the fairway can often be more valuable than another 20 yards into a poor position.

The two par fives create some of the clearest opportunities for stronger players to attack, but the course generally rewards patience. Shorter par fours still require thought because bunkers, trees and fairway contours can make an apparently simple approach much harder from the wrong location. Golfers playing the course for the first time therefore benefit from treating it as a positional course rather than judging every hole purely by its yardage.

The location is another considerable advantage. The club states that it is only around two miles from Leicester city centre and can be reached from central Leicester in less than 20 minutes. For visiting golfers, that makes it possible to combine a round with hotels, restaurants and attractions in the city without needing to travel deep into rural Leicestershire. The official Visit Leicester website provides further information for anyone planning a wider stay in Leicester and Leicestershire.

Yet once golfers move away from the clubhouse and into the more heavily wooded parts of the course, its urban location becomes surprisingly easy to forget. The protected green-wedge setting and neighbouring arboretum help create a much more established landscape than golfers might expect from a course so close to a major city centre.

For golfers interested in course architecture, The Leicestershire has another particularly strong reason to visit. Few ordinary members’ clubs can point to meaningful work from figures such as James Braid and Harry Colt alongside later redesigns from Charles MacKenzie and C.K. Cotton. The result is not a perfectly preserved course from a single period, but a layout that tells the story of how British golf courses have changed over more than a century.

The Leicestershire Golf Club is therefore worth playing for much more than convenience. Its origins stretch back to 1890, its course has survived two world wars and a major road development and several important architects have contributed to the layout golfers play today. Add the mature woodland, unusual ridge-and-furrow terrain and proven ability to host national amateur championships, and The Leicestershire offers one of the more historically interesting rounds within easy reach of central Leicester.