Belton Woods

A pair of parkland courses, one with a lot more water!

More than a dozen year since my last visit, thankfully this time was warmer than 6 degrees and rain! Both courses are in relatively good condition, considering we have just come out of one of the wettest winters, and the probability that they have reduced the green keeping staff over the past 2 years 'due to covid'. The tee boxes showed that they are quite busy, but generally ok for use. Fairways, well, they are fairways and, in this case, not too full of divot marks, so pretty reasonable. The greens are in quite good condition and are faster that I was used to (until today!) at Redbourn. Bunkers had some of that strange stuff, not always found on a golf course - sand.

All in all, we had a good couple of days in some lovely surroundings - could have done with less wind (but this is the Fens) and a little more warmth (April??). If you are thinking of a UK golf break, you will probably be happy with a couple of days here, then move on to somewhere else.

The attached hotel was a De Vere until they went bust (this hotel was the home of 'The Sunday Driver deal'). Is now part of the Q Hotels group. The staff are very friendly and will do the best they can. We turned up on the Sunday and the bacon rolls in our deal were great. Then onto the evening meal, and there was no complaint (our deal included a half bottle of wine each and I am told it was 'ok'). Breakfast was really good and the after-round ham egg and chips was better than many golf clubs will supply (real gammon steak).

The question that everyone needs to answer at the end of a review is - Would you go back? - Yes, should we (or someone else) have a golf weekend I'd be happy to return.

The Sunday driver deal we had was £140 (included the bacon roll and the after-golf meal and single room occupancy)- advertised price is from £99.

An Open partly mature parkland undulating course with some pot-hole bunkers around the greens and OOB. Some fairways had lateral ditches. Therefore course management comes into play.
Fairways, bunkers & greens were in excellent condition.
I found the course very testing because of the undulating ground and the speed of the greens.
Practise putting green & driving range, there is a practise hole, but it is some distant away. Great 19th hole with friendly staff.
Definitely recommended as golfing weekend retreat.

Played a competition at Belton woods 20/02/10. stayed at the hotel the night before.a de vere hotel. excellent hotel good facilites great food.the course was long but open no out of bound markers but plenty of well placed ponds mainly around the greens.lots of bunkers (only shame was that all bunkers were gur due to weather) i personally think they were ok and i'm sure it would have made a difference to some peoples scores. i went in one in my round. i took the advice of the yardage book and played every hole tactically. i never took on long shots over the ponds and relyied on my pitching. the greens were frozen in morning thawing out as we went round. they were very fast and quite difficult to read. i 3 putted 3 times.it was the first time i had played it. i played off 12 shot an 87 coming third out of 43 and also winning nearest the pin. all in all a good day. i would recommend the course and hotel to anyone who is in the area to play it.excuse my spelling if there are any mistakes.