Nothing soothes Londoners' jangled nerves and tourists' sightseeing stress more than a weekend on the fairways. The tired and the tense pack their portmanteaux and their golf clubs, and head out of the city by Vauxhall and Citroën, by National Rail and by helicopter, to be mollycoddled and cosseted at charming golf hotels.

Just 18 miles from central London, a rambling red brick mansion called The Grove stands in 300 acres of gardens and Hertfordshire woodlands on an estate owned for hundreds of years by the Earls of Clarendon. Weekend house parties were practically invented here in the 18th century when the 4th Earl's guests included such luminaries as Queen Victoria and Edward VII. Today the 227-room resort hotel is done up in ultra-contemporary, vividly-hued furnishings and eccentric artworks and such fancies as a cobalt-blue, antique Venetian chandelier and a lion-headed, white marble fireplace—no frills, flounces or flowery chintz here.

Although The Grove is close enough to the city that Sunday brunch or a round of golf is easily doable in a few hours, some golfers settle in for days at a time. Tiger did, in 2006, when he hosted (and won) the World Golf Championships here. He navigated reedy ponds, mounds and moguls, deep hollows, and bunkers with rough, grassy collars. Elevation changes and dense forest glens are screens between the fairways, creating a magical sense of privacy, the better to enjoy the English countryside. Fortunately for daytrippers, the course is semi-private. Condé Nast Traveller readers named The Grove "the UK's Best Leisure Hotel for 2008."

Après-golf, a Finnish sauna and a Turkish hammam soothe the senses at the ESPA spa, Sequoia, ensconced in a colonnaded old oak barn, where the 22-metre, black-and-gold mosaic-tiled indoor swimming pool glows with light from within. Before cocktails by the fireplaces in the elegant parlors, guests stroll through the walled gardens, originally laid out by the legendary "Capability" Brown. A stroll becomes a safari as abstract sculptures are discovered and gleaming sun-catcher balls are found floating in the ponds—watch for the "naked gardener" video. 47,500 trees were planted when the gardens and grounds were reborn the late 1900s.

Lording It Up at the Manor
90 minutes by InterCity train from Paddington Station (plus a 5-mile taxi ride), by the banks of the river Bybrook, Castle Combe is the quintessential Cotswold village, a narrow lane lined with honey-colored, rustic stone houses, the site of filming of such movies as "Doctor Doolittle" and "Stardust." No new houses have been built in the village since 1617. Across from the village pub, a leafy old carriage drive leads to the Manor House Hotel and Golf Club, a red creeper-entwined, 14th century edifice with foot-thick stone walls and mullioned windows, a picturesque sight surrounded by a vast greensward and acres of ancient cedars and beech trees, Italian gardens and rockeries. Guests take tea on the terrace after rounding the wickets on the croquet pitch, casting for brown trout, or playing a round of golf on the hotel's nearby golf course.

The original estate is mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1096. Reginald Dunstanville, Earl of Cornwall and son of Henry I, built a castle here in the 12th century, and on its foundations the manor house rose 200 years later. Over the centuries, Jacobean elements were added, a symphony of quirky chimneys, and in the 19th century, a warren of corridors and stairways leading to guest rooms and cozy lounges where today, guests play chess, choose from 65 premium whiskies or read by firelight, before heading to Michelin-starred Bybrook restaurant.

Meriting a four Red Star rating, accommodations at the Manor House are in quaint, comfy rooms or in the adjacent mews cottages and beamed-ceilinged, stone-walled former stables, outfitted with antiques and luxurious fabrics and finishes.

On 365 acres of stunning parkland, a meandering river, several lakes and impenetrable woods comprise the challenges on the Peter Alliss/Clive Clark-designed Manor House Golf Course. A typical hole is the par-4 fifth, a 467 yard right-angled dogleg, with bunkers at the elbow, a battalion of trees down the left and a lake guarding the approach to a long, narrow green guarded by a brace of bunkers.

On the finishing hole, accuracy off the tee is required-aim at the big tree where the fairway turns. Take care with the narrow approach to the green, which is surrounded by sand-and, watch out for the lake.

Dreaming in Devonshire
Deep in Devon, two hours by train from Paddington, Bovey Castle is a postcard-perfect, moss-covered Edwardian mansion built in 1907 for Viscount Hambledon. A real period piece, this was the original Baskerville Hall in the 1939 movie, "The Hound of the Baskervilles."

Collected by chauffeured Range Rover (from the nearby train station or from anywhere in the U.K.), or arriving on their own, guests pass by the world's cutest castellated gatehouse before arriving at the elaborately carved stone archway to be greeted by bellmen in plus-fours. Then, it's up the grand staircase to antiques-endowed rooms where mullioned windows overlook the golf course and the dark forests of Dartmoor National Park, a brooding, evergreen presence surrounding the 370-acre estate.

A fast-moving, narrow channel—not a river so much as a wide stream—the Bovey River runs rampant through the golf course, burbling beneath wooden bridges, past old barns and stone stairways. The track was designed by J.F. Abercromby in 1926, famous for Gleneagles and Turnberry. Wild rhododendrons and heather on the riverbanks are a pink and purple backdrop for swooping oystercatchers, kingfishers, teal and wigeon. The first hole, a 309-yard par four, drops sharply into a valley to a short iron approach to a bunkered green—a cinch, as long as you avoid the river all along the left side and fronting the green.

A wander through the house turns up oak paneled parlors, green leather armchairs in the cozy piano bar; hand-painted silk wallpapers, a museum's worth of Art Deco prints and paintings. The Great Hall is a soaring cathedral-ceilinged drawing room with a massive, intricately carved stone fireplace, pooled velvet drapes, red velvet armchairs and sofas deep enough for an afternoon snooze. Two-story-tall windows look onto the stone terrace, where guests take lunch and tea on sunny days. The West Country Cream Tea is not to be missed: scones with Devon clotted cream, house-smoked salmon and cream cheese sandwiches, egg and cress, cherry cake...

Besides the availability of golf, archery, clay shooting, fly-fishing and hot air ballooning from the castle grounds, a resident falconer is on hand to guide horseback riders into Dartmoor for game stalking.

Bond... James Bond
"Goldfinger" and "Tomorrow Never Dies" were filmed in and around the Stoke Park Club, the 350-acre estate and rambling Palladian-style main house that became the first country club in Britain in 1908 (just a half-hour taxi ride from Oxford Circus). During the golf match in "Goldfinger," Sean Connery as 007 catches Goldfinger cheating. Bond switches balls, whereupon Goldfinger motions to Oddjob, his murderous Korean manservant and caddie, to sever the head of a nearby statue with his steel-rimmed bowler. When Bond wonders aloud what the golf club secretary will say, Goldfinger says smugly, "Oh nothing, Mister Bond, I own the club!"

Most of the 21 accommodations in the mansion are suites with claw-footed tubs, fireplaces, lavish silk-and-satin draperies and sumptuous bedding. Some rooms open onto balconies where guests enjoy breakfast overlooking the fairways and the historic gardens. With 28 commodious new guest rooms, the new Spa SPC, an indoor swimming pool, a racquet pavilion and award-winning restaurants, the club is a popular weekend resort; golf is for members and hotel guests only.

Designed by Harry Colt and his assistant, Alistair MacKenzie, opened in 1908, the 27-hole Stoke Park Club golf course remains one of the most acclaimed of classic parkland courses in England. When MacKenzie later created August National, he modeled the 12th hole—Amen Corner—after the 7th at Stoke Park. The setting is lyrical, in a Capability Brown-designed landscape, with swans on the stream.