Knighton Heath

Inaugurated in 1932, the club was originally known as Northbourne Golf Club, with founding members playing on fairways set out by local professional Cecil Wren across Canford Heath, on land leased from Lord Wimborne. The course officially opened a couple of years after the club was formed, with Percy Alliss and Alf Padgham playing an exhibition match to mark the occasion.

The ownership of the club changed hands in 1959, when it was renamed New Northbourne Golf Club, then it was sold on again in 1972. The new owner went bankrupt four years later, allowing members the chance to raise sufficient funds to purchase the club, when it became the Knighton Heath Golf Club that’s now in use.

The course is a genuine heathland layout, perched on high ground with pine-flanked fairways. Extending to no more than 90 acres, it’s a very compact track, with numerous doglegged holes, one or two blind tee shots and plenty of heather to trouble those who stray too far away from the mown grass areas.

Feature holes include short par fours at the 5th, 6th and 13th. The four par threes offer great variety, with the shortest (the 14th, played uphill to a narrow green) measuring only 111 yards and the longest (the 3rd, played to a sloping hillside green) surveyed at 212 yards from the back tees.