Forest of Arden Country Club

Forest of Arden Country Club is a hotel and golf resort on Maxstoke Lane at Meriden, Warwickshire, postcode CV7 7HR, set on part of the Packington estate between Birmingham and Coventry. It has two eighteen-hole courses, both designed by Donald Steel: the Arden, a par 72 championship course that has hosted the English Open, the British Masters, the European Senior Masters and, in 2020, the Hero Open on the European Tour; and the Aylesford, a shorter par 69. The Arden measures 6,725 yards from the white tees on the card published by Golfify, and a good deal more from the tournament tees. The 18th, a long par 3 over water, is the hole people remember, usually for the wrong reasons.

For many years the resort traded as the Forest of Arden Marriott Hotel and Country Club, and plenty of listings still call it that. In October 2023 Warner Leisure Hotels, part of the Blackstone-owned Bourne Leisure group, announced that it had bought the property, together with Dalmahoy near Edinburgh, with plans to refurbish both and reopen them under its own brand; in the meantime, it said, they would keep operating independently. The resort’s current website trades simply as Forest of Arden Hotel and Country Club, publishes 2026 membership brochures and takes tee times online. We found no confirmed date for a change of brand, so this page describes the golf as it is offered today.

A tournament course in a deer park

The Arden is the older of the two courses. Top 100 Golf Courses, Golfify and Where2Golf all give 1970 as the year it opened; National Club Golfer says the early 1970s, and the GolfPass listing, which we could see only through search results, says 1973. The second course, the Aylesford, opened in 1991 according to a Golfmagic review of 2012. Top 100 Golf Courses describes the setting as Lord Aylesford’s Packington Park estate, known for its trout lakes and old oaks, and every source we read mentions the deer, which live on the estate and cross the back nine as if they had paid a green fee.

The professional game arrived in the 1990s. According to the results tables on English Wikipedia, the English Open was played on the Arden in 1994, 1995 and 1996, won in turn by Colin Montgomerie, Philip Walton and Robert Allenby, and again in 2000, 2001 and 2002, when Darren Clarke won twice either side of Peter O’Malley. The British Masters came in 1997 and 1998, won by Greg Turner and Colin Montgomerie, and returned for 2003, 2004 and 2005, won by Greg Owen, Barry Lane and Thomas Bjørn, the last after a play-off. Golfmagic’s 2002 review recalls Clarke winning at 17 under par and Michael Campbell setting a course record of 63 two years earlier.

The Legends Tour followed. The European Senior Masters was first played at Forest of Arden in 2017, when Stephen Dodd holed a long birdie putt on the 18th to win by one from Paul McGinley and Clark Dennis; Santiago Luna won in 2018 and Thomas Levet in 2019, according to tour reports of those years. Then, in the summer of 2020, the Hero Open came to the Arden. Sebastian García Rodríguez of Spain opened with a 62, reported at the time as a course record, and Sam Horsfield won his first European Tour title at 18 under par, 270, one ahead of Thomas Detry, who bogeyed the last. That final detail tells you most of what you need to know about the 18th.

What the course asks of you

The Arden is laid out in two loops returning to the hotel, so nine holes are possible, and the two halves have different characters. National Club Golfer and several reviewers describe a front nine of lakes and open parkland and a back nine through mature oaks, bracken and the deer park, which some find closer to heathland in feel. The card is a conventional par 72 with four par 3s, four par 5s and ten par 4s.

From the white tees, on the Golfify card, the front nine runs 372, 329, 527, 397, 172, 419, 495, 155 and 428 yards for 3,294 yards and par 36; the back nine 407, 343, 537, 430, 428, 185, 407, 487 and 207 yards for 3,431 yards and par 36. The same card gives 6,913 yards from the blue tees, 6,451 from the yellow and 5,654 from the red. The 13th, a par 4 of 430 yards from the whites, is stroke index 1; the 9th is stroke index 2 and the 16th stroke index 3. On the red card the 7th becomes a par 4 and the 13th a par 5.

The opening is gentle by the standards of what follows. National Club Golfer calls the first holes fairly comfortable, but water runs alongside the first two, and the 2nd, a short par 4, doglegs left around it; Golfmagic’s 2002 review describes a blind tee shot over water to leave a short iron. The 3rd is a long par 5 and shares a double green with the 6th. The 4th, which Golfmagic singles out, has its green tucked behind big oaks and water in front for the unwary. The 5th is a par 3 to a large green ringed by five bunkers, on a putting surface Golfmagic called severely undulating. From the 6th the course tightens: reviewers on Top 100 Golf Courses praise the run from the 6th to the 9th for the variety of its demands, from a carry over fairway bunkers at the 6th to the 8th, a short par 3 over water to a green guarded at the front and left, and the 9th, an uphill par 4 hemmed in by willows.

The back nine is harder, and longer in its par 4s. The 10th is a long dogleg right; the 11th, at 343 yards from the whites, is the shortest par 4 on the inward half. The 12th is a par 5 of 537 yards from the whites with a lake in front of a green that slopes towards it, a hole that tempts longer hitters to go for it in two and punishes them when they do. The 13th has a large oak on the left of the driving line and is the hardest hole on the course. The 14th has three large bunkers around the green and a fair chance of three putts; Golfmagic found it long but mundane, which is a polite way of saying it is merely difficult. The 15th, a par 3, has three bunkers and a ridge running across the green.

Then comes the finish that made the course’s reputation on television. The 16th is close to a right-angled dogleg right, framed by oaks, with a short-iron approach over water; it is stroke index 3. The 17th is a par 5 with water to the right of the green and a shaved bank to feed a weak shot into it. The 18th is a par 3 of 207 yards from the whites and 211 from the blues, played across a lake with the resort in view, with water and dense bush in the way. Golfmagic described it as needing a well-struck fairway wood; National Club Golfer notes that it appears in the book 1001 Golf Holes You Must Play Before You Die. For a club golfer standing on the tee with a card worth keeping, it is less a hole than a decision.

The Aylesford, the second course, is a par 69 and measures 5,801 yards from the white tees according to Golf Monthly and GolfNow, with narrow fairways, lively greens and water; the resort presents it as suitable for all abilities, and most reviewers who have played both rate the Arden higher. Practice facilities, according to the resort and National Club Golfer, include a floodlit driving range with covered bays and target greens, grass tees in summer, a short game area with bunkers and putting greens.

What golfers say

The resort is reviewed in large numbers. Golfshake, which groups both courses on one page, shows an average of 4.2 out of five from more than 750 reviews, with high marks for facilities and service and the lowest for pace of play. Top 100 Golf Courses gives the Arden 3.5 out of five from 33 reviews, and the GolfPass listing, seen through search results, shows 4.4 from 68 reviews. The points below summarise what recurs. They are other people’s opinions, not ours. Nobody from Panxis has played the course, and we name no reviewer.

What comes up in its favour

• The condition. Reviews on Golfshake from 2025 and 2026 and on Top 100 Golf Courses describe well-kept fairways and large, smooth, quick greens, including in dry summers.
• The back nine, its oaks, bracken and deer, which reviewers on several sites rank as the best part of the property and the main reason the Arden is rated above the Aylesford.
• The use of water as both feature and hazard, and the strategic holes from the 6th to the 9th, with the 4th, the 8th, the 13th and the 14th among the holes named.
• The finish, and the 18th in particular, which travel writers and reviewers treat as the signature hole, whatever it did to their scorecard.
• The hotel side: friendly staff, a well-run pro shop, the convenience of staying on site, and golf breaks that reviewers on Golfshake rate as fair value.

What comes up against

• Pace of play is the most frequent complaint, on Golfshake, Top 100 Golf Courses and Golfscape alike, with rounds of around five hours reported and busy days of corporate and society golf.
• Some reviewers find the front nine generic, with too many lakes and too many geese; Golfmagic’s 2002 review also noted goose droppings around the greens.
• The rough is thick and lush, and in wet weather the ground plays soft and long, which makes the course a stiff test from the back tees and a slow one for higher handicaps.
• One recent reviewer found the greens inconsistent in pace and the surrounds thin, which made chipping difficult; others reported the opposite in the same season.
• A minority consider the course overrated for its reputation, and one reviewer felt the long tees were set too far back in spring.

Getting there and when to go

The resort is in the countryside between Meriden and Maxstoke. National Club Golfer puts Coventry under ten miles to the east, Birmingham about fifteen miles to the west and Birmingham International airport and railway station some six miles away; English Wikipedia says about four miles east of the airport. Either way, it is close to the National Exhibition Centre, which explains a good deal about the corporate golf days. The Belfry is about seven and a half miles away in a straight line by our own measurement on the map.

The courses are open to visitors as well as to resort members. Tee times are booked through the resort’s online booking page, which offers both the Arden Championship and the Aylesford courses for groups of up to four; larger groups are asked to telephone. Societies and corporate golf days are arranged on both courses, and Golfbreaks lists buggy hire. The resort publishes a course status page, and its golf page announced the scarifying and top-dressing of the greens in late October, the Aylesford first and the Arden a week later, after which the greens may play below their usual standard for ten days to a fortnight. If you are booking for the putting surfaces, avoid that window. Golfshake reviews dated January show the course in play in winter, but reviewers and Top 100 Golf Courses agree that soft ground makes it play longer then.

Nearby courses in this directory include The Belfry, to the north-west, and Little Aston, near Sutton Coldfield.

Green fees

Rates vary by course, season and day and are shown when booking on the resort’s tee time booking page; members see their own rates after logging in. Directory listings quote figures that are years out of date, and we do not repeat them.

How this page was made

The factual frame comes from public sources: OpenStreetMap for the location; the resort’s golf pages, its Arden hole-by-hole guide and its golf brochure, as read in October 2026, for the two courses, their pars, the practice facilities, the booking arrangements, the greens maintenance and the events hosted; Golfify for the scorecard, the yardages from each tee and the opening year; The Social Golfer for a second yellow-tee rating; National Club Golfer for the hole guide, the distances and the address; Top 100 Golf Courses for the estate, the history and its reviews; Golfmagic for its reviews of 2002 and 2012; Where2Golf, Golf Monthly, GolfNow and Golfbreaks for lengths and tournament years; English Wikipedia for the resort, the English Open and British Masters results and the Hero Open; contemporary reports from the European Tour, the Associated Press and Golf Digest for the 2020 Hero Open; tour reports for the European Senior Masters; the Warner Leisure Hotels announcement and trade press of October 2023 for the change of ownership; Golfshake, Top 100 Golf Courses, Golfscape and Your Golf Travel for reviews; Wikidata for the identifiers.

Where sources disagree, we say so. Lengths from the back tees range from about 7,100 yards (National Club Golfer) and 7,134 (Top 100 Golf Courses) to 7,180 and 7,213 (two figures on the same Golfbreaks page; 7,213 also on GolfNow, GolfPass and Where2Golf); Golfify’s blue card adds up to 6,913, and its blue column contains an obvious error at the 10th. From the white tees Golfify gives 6,725 yards, while Golfmagic and Golf Monthly give 6,707; Golfmagic’s 2002 hole lengths also differ slightly from the current card. For the yellow tees, at 6,451 yards on both cards, Golfify gives a course rating of 71.8 and a slope of 138, and The Social Golfer 72.4 and 135; we could not find an official rated card, so treat both with caution. Where2Golf gives the red tees as par 71, Golfify par 72. The opening year is 1970 for most sources, the early 1970s for National Club Golfer and 1973 for GolfPass. Tournament counts differ: English Wikipedia’s article on the resort says the British Masters was held there three times and the English Open four times between 1993 and 1996, while the results tables on its own tournament pages give six English Opens from 1994 and five British Masters; Golfmagic says seven English Opens from 1993, but Wikipedia places the 1993 event at The Belfry. A travel listing gives the British Masters as 1997 to 1999, which the results tables do not support. The course record of 63 cited by Golfmagic was beaten by the 62 reported in 2020. Many listings, including the address supplied to us, still describe the resort as a Marriott hotel; its current website does not.

The opinion section summarises reviews on Golfshake, Top 100 Golf Courses, Golfscape and Your Golf Travel, and the averages shown on GolfPass, read in October 2026. We report recurring themes rather than individual voices, and we reproduce no quotations from reviewers. Nobody from Panxis has played or visited this course, and this page is no substitute for a round.

The club has not paid for this page, has not seen it before publication and has no say over its content. This page contains no commercial link and earns us no commission. If you know the club and something here is wrong or out of date, write to us and we will correct it.

Other courses nearby

Closest to this one in our British directory:

• The Belfry — Brabazon Course — 7 mi
• Little Aston Golf Club — 13 mi
• Collingtree Park Golf Club — 37 mi
• Radcliffe-on-Trent Golf Club — 43 mi