Golf around Chester and mid Cheshire

What the golf is like

This is Cheshire's rural stretch, south and west of the M56, and every course in it is sheltered rather than exposed in our data. Delamere Forest is a heathland course (inland golf on sandy, free-draining ground among heather and pine), ranked 54th in the NCG Top 100s for England. Carden Park and Portal are both resorts with a hotel and more than one course to play; Eaton and Vale Royal Abbey are parkland, both with water features running through them.

Photo to followDelamere station on the Mid-Cheshire line, next to Delamere Forest Golf Club on Station Road

Getting there

The A55 skirts Chester on its way into North Wales, and the A51 and A49 run out from the city towards Nantwich and Whitchurch, past Eaton and Carden Park. The A556 links the M56 to the M6 near Northwich, past Vale Royal Abbey, Delamere Forest and, a little further on, Portal at Tarporley.

Delamere station, on the Mid-Cheshire line, sits right next to Delamere Forest Golf Club; both share the same Station Road address. The same line also calls at Northwich, about 3.2 miles from Vale Royal Abbey. Chester station is about 3.7 miles from Eaton, but a fuller 9 miles from Carden Park, which sits well out into the Cheshire countryside and is best reached by road.

Liverpool John Lennon Airport is generally the nearer of the two big regional airports here: about 11 miles from Eaton, 11 miles from Delamere Forest, 14 miles from Portal and 18 miles from Carden Park, straight-line and computed from each club's postcode. Manchester Airport is further from all four, though it's roughly level with Liverpool for Vale Royal Abbey, at around 14 to 15 miles either way.

When to go

None of these five courses is marked exposed in our data, so wind is less of a factor here than on the coast. The parkland courses, Eaton and Vale Royal Abbey, can still turn heavy underfoot on clay ground after a wet spell; the sandier ground at Delamere Forest tends to cope better. Carden Park and Portal, both resorts with rooms on site, suit a stay built around more than one round rather than a single visit.

A few of the courses

Photo to followThe 9-hole Arderne course at Portal Golf Club, Tarporley, alongside its two 18-hole courses

Delamere Forest is the only NCG-ranked course in this group, 54th for England, and the closest to a station of any of the five. Carden Park has two 18-hole courses: the Cheshire, and the Nicklaus, where water comes into play on several holes, including split fairways at the 7th and 15th. Portal, at Tarporley, is the biggest by holes: an 18-hole Championship course, an 18-hole Premier course and a 9-hole course called the Arderne, with its own note in our directory that a sat nav to the postcode can stop over 500 metres from the clubhouse.

Eaton, just outside Chester, has ponds and streams through the course and a practice ground on site, our directory's only marked practice facility in this group. Vale Royal Abbey, at Northwich, has water features including a par 4 with a water-fronted green.

Booking a visitor round

None of the five book quite the same way. Delamere Forest and Vale Royal Abbey both take online bookings through BRS Golf, the same system used at several other North West clubs; Carden Park books through its own website instead. Eaton, by contrast, asks visitors to enquire directly rather than book online, the only one of the five set up that way in our data; Portal's own record shows a visitor booking route too, but Golf Metric hasn't yet captured the specific booking page for it, so a call to the club is the safer route there for now.

For beginners

A sheltered parkland round, without a links course's wind, is generally an easier place to start. Eaton's practice ground is the one course here Golf Metric can point to directly for warming up before you play; none of the other four is marked with a practice facility in our data, though several may still have one that simply isn't recorded yet.