Our History

Ascot Golf Club was founded by local Barrister F.J. Patton in 1887, and given Royal status by Queen Victoria later that year. Many of her children including the Prince of Wales, later King Edward VII, learned to play golf at Royal Ascot and was patron of the club from 1901.

Originally, Royal Ascot GC and Ascot Ladies’ GC each had a nine-hole course on Ascot Heath in the middle of the racecourse. In 1895, the two clubs amalgamated and a new 18-hole course was designed by J.H. Taylor, then holder of the Open Championship which he won five times. Some members found the Heath course rather difficult, so in 1900 several Royal Ascot members helped found Sunningdale Golf Club.

In 2000, when the Ascot Racecourse Authority announced plans for a major redevelopment of the racecourse the Club moved to the new course across Winkfield Road on the site of the former Ascot Farm, once a medieval deer forest. Ironically, 100 years earlier it had been the home of a small golf club for local traders know as Ascot St George’s.

RAGC moved into its new clubhouse just before Christmas 2004, while still playing on what remained of the old Heath course. The new course opened for play in August 2005 and was then formally opened by the Club patron HRH Prince Andrew, Duke of York, in May 2006.

The challenging 6294 yard parkland course on 150 acres of wooded Crown land was described by one former Ryder Cup player as “one of the best new English courses I have played for a long time.”