Dorking Golf Club

Dorking Golf Club occupies ground on the slopes of Box Hill, the well-known chalk outcrop of the North Downs that overlooks the Surrey town of Dorking. The course is compact by the standards of many Surrey clubs, a product of fitting a golf layout onto the hillside terrain rather than flatter parkland further from the town. It has a long history as a members' club, predating much of the twentieth-century development that has since spread around Dorking itself. The Box Hill setting brings elevation change into play across the round, with the chalk downland giving the turf a firmer character than the clay-based parkland courses found elsewhere in the Home Counties. Dorking sits on the River Mole at a gap through the North Downs, a position that has made it a historic market town and a popular base for walkers heading onto Box Hill and the surrounding countryside. The golf club's position within that landscape means the course is inseparable from the wider setting, with the same slopes that draw ramblers to Box Hill also shaping the challenge for golfers on the course below.