Golf in Woodhall Spa

Golf in Woodhall Spa grew alongside the village’s rise as a Victorian resort. The game first took root locally in 1890 with a nine-hole course, and the golf club was instituted in 1891. When early land was required for development, members quickly found a new site to keep play going.

A defining leap came in 1902 when local landowner and member Stafford Vere Hotchkin offered heathland off Horncastle Road for a proper 18-hole course. Champion golfer Harry Vardon was brought in to design it, and the course officially opened in June 1905. It was later refined by Harry Colt (1911–14), before Colonel S.V. Hotchkin reshaped many holes and greens in the 1920s—work that still underpins the famous “Hotchkin” course today.

In 1995 the English Golf Union purchased the club and moved its headquarters onto the site, which is now the National Golf Centre—cementing Woodhall Spa’s status as a home of English amateur golf. A second 18 holes, the Donald Steel-designed Bracken, opened in 1998, adding a modern counterpart to the classic heathland test.