Ludlow Golf Club

A trip to Ludlow is a perfect day out for those golfers who also list donkey-walloping (that's horse racing to you, mate) among their interests, as the course sits inside the town's racecourse in this picturesque corner of Shropshire.

You won't of course be teeing it up when Best Mate comes cantering round the corner, but the racetrack does cut across four holes meaning you might find yourself playing some fairly interesting shots. Thankfully, you do get relief from the numerous hoof prints but other wayward shots have to be played as they lie, sometimes across jumps and other times from very deep grass.

Ludlow isn't a long course, but what it lacks in yards it more than makes up for in finesse, especially it's par threes. All four are tricky customers but the 13th and 17th really stand out. On the 13th tee you can only see the top of a very tall flag as you play 165 yards across scrubland to a punchbowl green, whilst the 17th is a testing 182 yards (often played into a cross wind) to a narrow green protected by three hellacious bunkers.

Best Hole: 10th, 44 yards par 5. A testing uphil hole where a thick swathe of the jungle like rough of the racecourse fronts a green that slopes wickedly from back to front.