Quintessentially English golf (a Scottish founded sport of course) is something to behold. Nothing better than making your way into a proper old golf club to see a stunning manor house or stately styled home which is still used as the clubhouse.

Beeston Fields is in the heart of the city, a stone’s throw from the A52 and surrounded by west side suburbia but coming up the driveway to the property you feel as if you’re miles away, you might easily be midst the Nottinghamshire countryside, passing through the tree bordered greenway as you reach the hedgerow surrounded car park to see a huge old white house dating back to 1902.

The clubhouse is magnificent, looking out on to the putting green and eighteenth, during ‘covid times’ it’s hard to find the way in? A little side door to a hidden pro shop leads us to where we should pay. A tiny outlet with the smallest of signs. They don’t really do with adequate signage at Beeston. Probably because the members all know where they are going.

We are ‘told’ where the first tee is. A group of Trent & Nottingham University students, all kitted up with some in grey, others in green, are hovering around. Looks like a golf comp is going to start. We need to get in ahead!

Our tee time is ten to two, a three-ball between work mates, we’ve picked this course off the back of wanting to try somewhere locally new, none of us have played it, which gives me perfect opportunity to review for Nottingham Sport of course.

The first hole is a short 300 yarder with a little bit of water left of the green. There is a hut outside the first tee which is immaculately cut, a pump of the driver down towards the fairway offers a pretty safe start, then it’s chip on to the green avoiding the bunkers and water, you need to be straight, but once on, the greens are relatively easy to read. Well cut, not as well looked after as the tees mind but a nice pace to read all the same. A Japanese looking footbridge leads us over the water to hole number two, a slightly longer par four this time, up the ever so slight hill with a bunker hidden by the trees on the right. The fairways are tight, the holes situated pretty close together, a short par three third of 143 yards offers a really pleasant start to your golfing day, by now your score ‘should’ still be ok.. I suggest that being an ‘older’ course it’s less in yards and ‘easier’ for the later generation of player… It’s a forgiving start and relatively flat, but it gets more difficult as we go, as I am soon to find out.

Hole number four is where it all went wrong for me. Relying on my heavy fade despite perfect connection I aimed too far left and hit a tree with the ball bouncing back to pretty much where I started. A scurry up the hill had me scrambling behind the others, but again ‘played correctly’ it’s a nice hole, slightly uphill to an open green which should be reached in a good couple of shots.

This is where the lack of signage had us confused. We then played the next nearest tee, by this time the comp behind us where on our backs, these guys you could hear on the holes by us were giving it a real good thwack, good young players with low handicaps hitting it miles.

We played longest drive and nearest the pin as well as scoring matchplay for each hole. I hadn’t got near to longest drive despite a couple of nice ones straight down the fairway, this time I nailed it, took the gong to get my first of the round a steady 230 just short of a large bunker, then chipped wide of the green to clip on with a seven iron and two putt for a bogey. Despite the score, I still halved the hole which at least kept me in the lead for now, as we walked off towards a car park, the lack of signage again gave us confusion. We asked two men pushing beer barrels, ‘where’s the sixth’ we say… “You’ve just played the eighteenth” one replied. “Did you go from four straight to eighteen?” It seemed we weren’t the first people to suffer this regular error of judgement.

For your information, Beeston is a course that seems to be split into three separate areas. Holes 1 to 4 (including 18) are in the first section, after 4 you are supposed to walk through the hedge and to the right, to play holes five to nine, before crossing over a footpath and gated entrance that reminds you of a Safari Park entrance, to play holes 10 to 17, then back onto the ‘old course’ through the gates and over the road to play that final hole (which we had already played). Obviously as Beeston Virgins, we didn’t know that, a sign however could have pointed us the right way if there had been one to tell us…

So after playing the eighteenth, thinking we were playing the fifth, we were back walking down the fairway with some odd looks as we hunted for ‘actual’ hole number five.

We eventually made it, turning the corner to a tee pointing towards a brow of a hill, pole in distance, this next shot was pretty much blind which I never like, but once you know how much the fairway opens out, it becomes a lovely hole, forgiving, to hit down and up towards the green, plenty of margin for error, unlike the first section of the course which is quite tight and short, this is much more open and vast, a raised tee on the sixth see’s you driving over the heathland parallel with the stunning homes on Beeston Fields Drive, one of Nottingham’s premier roads to live on.

By now the Uni comp is in front of us. They didn’t make the same mistake as us as playing the eighteenth, a fourball in front, a fourball behind, we’re in a sandwich of balls being thwacked aggressively everywhere.

The seventh is another long par four, labelled as the toughest on offer, doglegged to the right, the tee is in front of the most immaculately modern mansion built on a road called Claremont Avenue overlooking the sixth and ninth greens. Some stunning properties line the back of the course, this for me the most stand out home with a view.

I end up short and to the right with my drive and not knowing where the hole is (the scorecard has no diagrams to offer hints) I guess and aim for the trees hoping that it’ll fly over and find something near normality on the fairway. I get it horribly wrong and end up in worst case scenario, my next shot is in the bushes playing on the brow of a hump aiming to shoot low beneath the branches, it’s impossible to come out not hitting the woodwork, somehow, I get out with a few scrapes and bruises (mainly to the ego)… Eventually… But it was far from my best hole of the day.

A short up hill par three is next and some parity installed, a nice par leading us to a downhill 400 yard ninth which is again blind from the drive, a good connection will give you a decent distance and although there’s three tricky bunkers fifty yards short of the green, should you get over them it’s relatively trouble free. Although do watch out for the trees as it is a much tougher hole to master than most previous (its stroke index three rating suggests this too), I ended up too far left and ruining an out score that should have been respectable.

On to ten, the first par five and you go through a gate, again no signs, just presume you’re heading right, the gate is one of those thick silver steel things and crosses a footpath, where another gate lets you in to the third section of the course. No way near the clubhouse, it’s certainly not one of those places you can play a front nine and skip straight to the nineteenth for a beer, it’s all or nothing, unless like us you play the first four and eighteen like we did?

Ten is long and up the hill, by now we have the golf comp in front and behind, balls are plenty, many go right first tee shot and pretty much onto the fairway of hole number twelve, mines fine, to the right but on the fringe, two more whacks and you’re thereabouts (500 yards all in).

Eleven is a short par three (164 off the yellows) which needs a pump of the wrists with a high iron to a flat base and onto twelve, a downhill dogleg, smash off an elevated tee towards home, a par four in under 400 yards.

Somehow, we seem to be catching those comp pros in front… A bad hole for them, we are laying up as they putt on the green, they decide to wait for us and let us play through, problem is, two of us are playing ok, one isn’t… I state “have you seen him play his last few shots” as they usher us through whilst sitting watching our next tee shots…

Up first, I need to get this out of the way. Four decent golfers, some of the best at the University of Nottingham are now watching us play, I smash it, hell for leather uphill like I do it all the time, only for the guy I’m playing with to shout aloud “that’s your best drive of the day”… The other two go right into the trees, it’s another longest drive hole I’ve won, in fact my first ‘official’ after my smash on the eighteenth now scrapped from all records. I’ll be honest I don’t hit it that far.

So reaching the brow of the hill, proud as punch, a long five iron puts me within touching distance of the green. Not sure what the others are playing at as I look right to see them scrapping around in the trees, as I walk up, relatively content with my second shot, I notice a line of four balls, a good fifty yards in front of my original… The Uni lads had obviously played there’s first before allowing us to walk ahead, on the understanding they undertook us when we went wrong playing the fifth, but if I was proud of my tee shot which I hit in front of those boys, I was soon put back in place after finding out where there’s had landed.

A nice hole however which I managed to par, the next is the tightest of par threes with no margin for error, just 124 yards over a valley and between the trees, I manage to lose a ball after clipping a branch and after looking for five minutes, noticing those Uni lads are all awaiting, I decide a quick drop and double-bogey is as good as it gets.

This part of the course seems hillier and not as wide as the second section, two long par fives are up next, but not as daunting as they seem, fifteen is 525 yards with sixteen a whole yard longer, the first downhill towards the green, the second back up yourself with a slightly tighter fairway and is one which I have trouble with, those pesky trees in view again.

It’s not the best round for me and by seventeen I must admit, I felt a little sapped. It has been a course I have ‘liked’ but not ‘loved’ which could be more down to the way I played? Seventeen was not a pleasant memory, I eventually get within touching distance before horribly topping my sand wedge and ending up further away from where I started my third shot.

The eighteenth didn’t have the same excitement having already played it, this time my drive is not so good, and worsened still by one of my playing partners who parred the last two holes, smashing it to within yards of the green to chip on and birdie. It’s only 276 yards but my second shot finds me in the bunker.

After chipping out and two putting for a bogey it wasn’t a round I want to remember and I’m not in the best of moods to say that Beeston is the course for me, but looking back beyond those blobs and blunders, at that stunning first section, the onlooking club house and it’s fantastic surroundings, it certainly feels like a golf club, a traditional English club that offers a bit of luxury and leisure, before a nice varied range of big hitting holes with some challenges along the way.

In parts stunning, in others not so, but it is a nice varied eighteen holes that rewards sensible approach play. Certainly, one of those places that can be tamed with good decisions but less often mastered due to many complexities on offer from tighter fairways to trees in view, the restaurant and bar however looks stunning, patio on the green, by now 6pm full of golfers drinking in the midweek sun, a perfect way to end the day, except that they seem to have ran out of every beer under the barrel bar Carling.

• Course Looks: 8 out of 10
• Course Quality: 8 out of 10
• Course Difficulty: 7 out of 10

*Article provided by Daniel Peacock (Editor).

*Main image @dannypea even better in the sun – Beeston is a lovely course to play.