Can You Play JCB Golf and Country Club, Home of LIV Golf UK

On the last Sunday in July, Lucas Herbert closed with a 10-under 62 to win LIV Golf United Kingdom at 30 under par. It was the lowest winning score in the league's history, six shots clear of Tyrrell Hatton, and it came on a course in rural Staffordshire that almost nobody watching at home will ever set foot on.

That is the strange pull of JCB Golf & Country Club. Three years running it has hosted the loudest golf tournament in Britain, with DJs on the ninth and a temporary pub built beside the green, and then the gates close again and the place returns to being one of the most quietly guarded golf courses in the country.

So the question a lot of golfers typed into their phones that weekend was a simple one. Can you actually play it?

Here is the honest answer, followed by the closest thing to a round there you are likely to get: a hole by hole walk through the course, the numbers behind Herbert's record week, and three courses within half an hour that you genuinely can book.

Can you play JCB Golf and Country Club as a visitor?

No. JCB Golf and Country Club is a strictly private members club with no public green fees. Membership is corporate and by invitation only. The only routes on are as the guest of a member, or as a JCB employee on a Sunday afternoon.

That is it. There is no visitor tee time, no society package, no shoulder-season rate. You cannot ring the pro shop on a Tuesday and get out on a Thursday.

It is worth understanding why, because JCB is unusual even by the standards of private clubs.

The course JCB built in a Staffordshire quarry

The course sits on the Hollington Road just outside Rocester, a village of a few thousand people in the Staffordshire countryside, roughly twenty minutes from Uttoxeter and forty from Derby. It was built at the direction of Lord Bamford, chairman of the JCB construction empire, and designed by Robin Hiseman of European Golf Design.

The brief was not to build a members club in the traditional sense. It was to build a course good enough to hold a professional tournament, on land the company already owned, using the company's own machinery to move it. The result opened in 2018 and went almost immediately onto the shortlist of the best modern courses in England.

What makes it different from most private clubs is the membership model. There is no waiting list you can join and no joining fee you can pay. Membership is corporate: companies hold it, and each one receives an allocation of rounds per year to use for employees, clients and guests. Individual golfers, however wealthy or well connected, do not simply buy their way in.

The one genuine crack of daylight is that JCB employees can play the course on a Sunday afternoon for a modest green fee. If you happen to know somebody who works there, that is a conversation worth having.

What happened at LIV Golf UK in 2026

The 2026 edition ran from 23 to 26 July, the third straight year at JCB, and it produced the best golf the league has seen.

Herbert opened with an 11-under 61. Nine birdies, one eagle, not a single bogey, three birdies in his first three holes and a 47-foot eagle putt on the par-5 10th. He led after every round and never gave the lead back, going 61-66-69-62 for a 258 total.

Hatton played the golf of his life and lost by six. The Englishman shot 66-68-67-63 to finish at 24 under, closing with a 9-under 63 on Sunday that would have won most weeks by a distance. Bryson DeChambeau took third at 21 under. Cameron Smith was fourth at 17 under, having made eight birdies in a row during Saturday's third round.

Laurie Canter gave the home crowd something to shout about with a tied seventh at 13 under, recovering from an opening 73 with rounds of 66, 70 and 66. Ian Poulter, at 50, produced his best week of the season to finish tied fifteenth. In the team event, Ripper GC won at 52 under, four clear of Legion XIII, their third team title of the year.

The numbers behind Herbert's week are the part worth keeping. He gained an average of 6.48 strokes per round on the field, the highest tournament figure in LIV history. He made 30 birdies and 32 combined birdies and eagles, both league records. DeChambeau, who finished third, put it best afterwards: he beat fourth place by four shots, and Herbert beat the top five by sixteen.

How do you get an invitation to JCB?

Realistically, through work. The corporate membership structure means the golfers who play JCB are almost always there as somebody's guest on somebody's company allocation. Construction, plant hire, agriculture, motorsport and the supplier network around JCB itself are the most common routes.

Beyond that, the club hosts a small number of charity and invitational days each year, and occasional professional and amateur events bring in fields who would otherwise never see the place. Volunteering at LIV Golf UK will not get you a round, but it will get you inside the ropes, which is closer than most.

If none of that applies to you, you are in the same position as the vast majority of golfers in Britain, and the rest of this piece is written for you.

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The front nine, where JCB sets its trap

JCB plays to a par of 72 and measures 6,749 yards from the black tees, with the front nine at 3,287 and the back at 3,460. The professionals play it considerably longer, but the member card is the one that tells you what the course is actually asking.

It opens hard. The 1st is a 386-yard par 4 carrying stroke index four, which is an unusually stiff welcome for a first hole and sets the tone immediately. There is no gentle handshake.

The 2nd drops to 304 yards and is the first of several short par 4s where the course invites you to take it on. This is a running theme at JCB. The card is not long, so Hiseman defends it with angles, run-offs and bunkering rather than raw yardage, and the short holes are where scores are won or thrown away.

The 3rd is the first par 5 at 555 yards, and the 5th is a genuine par 3 at 205 with the wind usually involved. Then comes the hardest hole on the front, the 7th, a 466-yard par 4 playing to stroke index two. On a card this length, a par 4 of that distance is the outlier, and it plays like one.

The 9th closes the loop at 153 yards, the shortest hole on the course and stroke index eighteen. It is also the hole LIV built a pub next to. During tournament week the Majesticks Arms sits beside the ninth green, which tells you something about the atmosphere the event is going for.

The back nine, and the walk to 17

The back nine is where JCB gets serious, and where the yardage arrives. It runs 173 yards longer than the front and holds three of the four toughest holes on the card.

The 10th is the big one at 578 yards, the longest hole on the course and the site of Herbert's 47-foot eagle putt in that opening 61. The 13th is not far behind at 572. Between them sits the 12th at 294 yards, the shortest par 4 on the property and a deliberate piece of temptation.

Then the closing stretch. The 15th is stroke index one, a 428-yard par 4, and by common consent the hardest full shot on the course. The 16th offers a moment of relief at 381. And then you walk to the 17th tee.

The 18th brings it home at 422 yards, stroke index three, which means JCB finishes the way it started: refusing to let you coast.

Two of the reviews on the Hole19 course page capture it better than a course description can. One golfer wrote that it beats you up, knocks you down, but you still have a smile on your face. Another simply called it the best course he could have dreamed of playing.

What makes the 17th island green so hard?

The 17th is the hole people mean when they talk about JCB. It is a par 3 to a two-tier island green, 232 yards from the black tees and around 255 from the very back, played downhill from an elevated tee to a putting surface ringed by water with bunkers spilling into the lake like beaches.

Here is the detail that separates it from every other island green in golf. It was not built. The island had been sitting in that lake for more than half a century, since JCB dug the water out in the first place. Hiseman found it and put a green on it. Compare that with the manufactured drama of a TPC Sawgrass 17th and you understand why golfers who have played JCB talk about this hole for years afterwards.

The difficulty is not really the water. It is the club selection. The tee is elevated, so the ball flies further than the raw yardage suggests, and the hole plays downhill into a bowl where the wind swirls unpredictably. Golfers overwhelmingly come up short. They see water, they see a long carry, they take the number off the card, and they do not account for either the drop or the wind direction at green level being different from the wind direction on the tee.

The Hole19 card rates it stroke index nine, which is probably the biggest understatement in Staffordshire.

This is exactly the sort of hole where Plays Like distances earn their money. Instead of guessing how much the elevation drop is worth, Premium golfers get the adjusted number that accounts for it, so the decision becomes which club rather than how brave you are feeling. Add the distances to hazards and you know precisely how much green sits between the front edge and the back tier before you commit.

What Herbert's 30 under says about your game

There is a lesson buried in the Strokes Gained data from that week, and it applies at any handicap.

Hatton was the best iron player in the field by a mile. He gained 14.66 strokes on approach, nearly four clear of Cameron Smith in second. In most weeks, leading a LIV field in approach play by that margin wins the tournament comfortably.

He finished second by six shots.

Herbert did not lead the field in ball striking. He was second off the tee, gaining 5.38, and fifth on approach at 8.13. What he did lead was putting, at 11.60, and the combination of being very good everywhere and best somewhere is what produced 30 under.

The takeaway for the rest of us is not to hit it like Lucas Herbert. It is that a single elite category will not carry a scorecard if another category is leaking. Most golfers know their strength and practise it, because practising the thing you are good at is more enjoyable than practising the thing you are not. The scorecard does not reward that.

This is precisely what Strokes Gained analytics on the Intelligence tier exist for. Rather than guessing whether your problem is driving, approach play, short game or putting, you get the answer broken down by category against a benchmark, and Otto AI reports turn it into something you can actually work on before your next round. If your handicap has been stuck for two seasons, this is usually where the reason is hiding.

Read more: How to Play Better Under Pressure on the Golf Course

How to scout a course before you play it

You may never get on JCB. You will absolutely get invited to play somewhere you have never seen before, in a society day, a club away trip or a member-guest, and the golfers who play those rounds well are the ones who did their homework.

Walking onto an unfamiliar first tee with no information is how good golfers shoot bad scores. The most common mistakes have nothing to do with swing quality. They are aiming at the wrong part of the fairway, taking on a carry that was never on, and missing greens on the side where recovery is impossible.

Hole19 maps over 42,000 courses across 195 countries, JCB included, so you can open the course in the app before you travel and walk it hole by hole from your sofa. Look at the shape of each hole, note where the trouble sits and decide in advance which holes you are attacking and which you are simply getting past. On the day, the GPS rangefinder gives you the yardages, distances to hazards tell you what you can and cannot carry, and Club Recommendation turns your own tracked distances into a suggestion rather than a hunch.

If the round matters enough to prepare for, the preparation should include the range. CORE Golf is where a lot of that work gets done, turning practice into something structured rather than a bucket of balls and a driver.

Read more: Golf Formats That Make Every Round More Fun

Three courses near JCB you can book

You cannot play JCB. You can, however, play good golf within twenty minutes of its gates, and all three of these are mapped in Hole19 so you can scout them before you go.

Uttoxeter Golf Club, Uttoxeter, Staffordshire

The closest proper alternative to JCB, sitting alongside Uttoxeter Racecourse just a few miles down the road. Built in 1970 and a shorter test at under 6,000 yards, its appeal is the setting: the course overlooks the River Dove with long views across to the Weaver Hills. It will not test you the way JCB tests a professional, but it is a genuinely pleasant round in the same corner of Staffordshire.

Uttoxeter Golf Club on Hole19

Manor Golf Club, Kingstone, Staffordshire

A family-run parkland course designed by A. Foulds and opened in 1991, rolling gently across the East Staffordshire countryside just outside Uttoxeter. Par 71 at around 6,092 yards from the whites. The important part for anyone reading this article is that it is open to the public daily, so unlike its famous neighbour you can simply book and play. The clubhouse bar looks out over the 18th green.

Manor Golf Club - Kingstone on Hole19

Ashbourne Golf Club, Ashbourne, Derbyshire

Cross the county line and you are into Derbyshire, on the doorstep of the Peak District. Ashbourne sits around nine miles from Uttoxeter, plays to a par of 71 over 6,306 yards, and is one of the best rated courses in the area among Hole19 golfers. It makes an obvious pairing with either of the Staffordshire courses above if you are making a weekend of it rather than a single round.

Ashbourne Golf Club on Hole19

Whichever you pick, open it in the app first. Every one of them is mapped, with hole layouts, yardages and green distances ready before you arrive.

Read more: Best Golf Courses Near the Beach

Is JCB the best course in England?

It is firmly in the conversation, and it got there faster than any modern British course in memory. Opening in 2018 and being taken seriously alongside the great heathland and links courses within a few years is not normal.

The case for it is the quality of the individual holes. There is very little filler. The short par 4s at the 2nd and 12th give you decisions rather than a walk, the 15th is a genuinely hard par 4, and the 17th is one of the most memorable one-shot holes anywhere in Britain. The conditioning, backed by essentially unlimited resource, is close to tournament standard year round.

The case against is not really about the golf. It is that a course nobody can play is difficult to rank honestly, and that the professional scoring, 30 under to win, suggests it does not defend itself against elite players the way a championship links does in wind.

Both things can be true. It is a wonderful golf course, and the fact you cannot play it is a large part of why everybody wants to.

What is the par and yardage at JCB?

JCB Golf & Country Club plays to a par of 72 over 6,749 yards from the black tees, split 3,287 out and 3,460 back, with each nine at par 36. There are four par 3s, ranging from the 153-yard 9th to the 232-yard 17th, and the professionals play a significantly longer setup during LIV Golf UK week.

The full scorecard, hole by hole with yardages and stroke indexes, is on the Hole19 course page for JCB, and the course is mapped in the app if you are ever fortunate enough to get an invitation.

You probably will not play JCB this year. But the next course you get invited to, you can walk before you get there, know every yardage when you arrive and see exactly where your strokes went afterwards.

Find your next round on Discover Courses, and download Hole19 free to play it better.