Best cars for golfers 2024

If you're going to take a car to the golf course, do it in style. Do it in a Mercedes-Benz E-Class Convertible. This particular E-Class is known in the business as the A207, which was revealed at the North American International Motor Show back in 2010. It's a good choice for two reasons: it is affordable and well-made. 

As a result, £15,000 buys you a car that looks like a million dollars, but costs no more than a mid-range city car. It's even practical, with surprisingly generous rear-seat knee room and a boot that'll swallow two sets of clubs, no issues, whether the roof is up or down.

Now, the practical portion of your head might steer you towards one of the diesels – understandable, they've all got hearty power and great fuel economy – but resist and treat yourself to the E400 petrol. It packs a lusty 3.0-litre V6 that gives the Mercedes oodles of turbine-smooth power that's the perfect fit for its linear automatic gearshifts and wafty ride quality.

Some things belong together – tea and biscuits, toast and cheese, thunder and lightning and, er, Jaguars and golf course car parks. There's just something right about a long-nosed Jaguar grand tourer patiently waiting for its owner's return from the clubhouse.

And if you want a Jaguar GT car, the XK is the only sensible option. To begin with, it's great looking, it doesn't have the flabby rear end and oversized wheel arches of the old XK8, and its flowing lines mean it isn't as aggressive as the F-Type.

Inside, it does look its age with too many buttons and an infotainment screen that belongs in a museum, but it makes up for this by having a boot that'll swallow two sets of golf clubs and a cabin that has almost every surface covered in leather. The driving experience matches the sumptuous interior, you get a choice of V8s up to 5.0-litre in size, and suspension that strikes great a balance between control and comfort. 

If Ferrari built a four-door family car (it doesn't) it would look something like the Maserati Quattroporte: even the name sounds exotic. Ironic because 'Quattroporte' means nothing fancier than 'four door' in Italian. 

This is an exotic car that can happily swallow people and stuff, including golf clubs, which is why it wins a place on this list. It's not as high-tech inside as a similar-size BMW or Mercedes-Benz but it feels more sporty with supportive seats, a low driving position and a sporty three-spoke steering wheel. 

There was a time when you could have the Quattroporte with a Ferrari-derived V8 engine, but poor fuel economy and high emissions meant it didn't last long. We favour the Quattroporte S, with its a 430PS V6 that gets it from 0-62mph in five seconds and onto a top speed of 180mph. Adequate, we're sure you'll agree. 

Following the phrase 'it does what it says on the tin' to the letter, the Volkswagen Golf should be good at, well, golf, right? By that, we don't mean it's got a +5 handicap, always finds the green from 450 yards and is a dead-eye putter. But, it is a great family car with a boot that'll swallow several sets of golf clubs.

In fact, the Golf's boot sums up the car very well. It's extremely well thought out and well designed, so it's easy for you to make use of every last litre of space. While the Golf's not an expensive car per se, it feels like a quality product, and its infotainment screens are bright and colourful, which makes up for them being fiddly to use.

The driving experience strikes a fine balance, too. You get a great range of engines to choose from, but the mild-hybrid 150PS eTSI petrol is our pick, being reasonably punchy but also great on fuel. Meanwhile, the suspension gives you plenty of confidence in bends and is very comfortable on a long drive. 

There will likely be a mix of reactions when you roll into the golf course car park in your BMW i7. Half the folk there will wonder where you popped up from because they didn't hear you coming due to the near-silent running of your car, while the other half will look on slack-jawed in disbelief at the showiness of the car's brash, nostrilly styling.

However, you'll be the one laughing as you get out of your i7, ready to tear it up on the course because you're feeling so relaxed after such a comfortable and relaxed journey there. What's more, you'll have sat in some of the highest-quality surroundings that motoring has to offer, and you'll have had every imaginable piece of luxury equipment at your fingertips. And you'll have likely got there very fast indeed, as every version of the i7 is massively quick.

Perhaps just as importantly, you'll have been able to bring three of your well-heeled mates along with you, and the long, wide 500-litre boot will have had space for everyone's bats. That's proper club-captain behaviour.

A MegaBox is the kind of thing you might expect to find at any quality kebab house, but in the Ford Puma, it's something quite different. Here, it's a recess in the boot floor that means there's space for a golf bag to sit upright. Bit disappointing if you were expecting a polystyrene tub packed with every kind of meat imaginable...

Anyway, said recess has a plug in the floor so it's easy to wash out: it's an ideal place to put wet clothes or mucky golf shoes. It's just one of the Puma's many practical features. The Ford has space for four adults and an interior that's crammed full of smaller storage spaces. It's nicely built and has decent infotainment.

It's also great to drive, sharing its underpinnings with the now-defunct Fiesta, a hatchback that handles way better than it has any right to. If that sounds like your bag, the Puma ST could be just the thing, adding the Fiesta ST's 200PS engine to the mix – making this dinky little SUV pretty blooming nippy. 

If you want an estate that'll have loads of room for your clubs and can cut a dash in the club car park, but isn't as flasy as a BMW 5 Series Touring or an Audi A6 Avant, then step this way.

Somehow, the Volvo V90 manages to be as posh as the other two, while not creating the barely veiled resentment a BMW or Audi gets from other road users. When was the last time a Volvo was welded to your rear bumper on the motorway? Exactly. 

Inside, the V90 looks great, with an iPad-style infotainment screen and loads of space. What might be more of a surprise is that V90 is also a decent car to drive, with precision in corners that would be alien to you if you previously owned an older Volvo. The lack of six-cylinder engines is a shame, but the V90 makes up for it by offering a plug-in hybrid that has serious firepower. 

Volvo no longer builds the V90 - the Swedish firm only makes SUVs these days, despite being known for estate cars - so you'll have to look to the used market to get one, but that will mean lower pricing.

Want to reach places other golfers can't, while travelling in extreme luxury? Then you best get your hands on a Range Rover, the first car to combine the comfort of a luxury car with the go-anywhere ability of a Land Rover when it was launched at the end of the 1960s.

The latest Range Rover is significantly more sophisticated than the original. Its Terrain Response system can detect the conditions under your tyres and set the car's suspension, throttle, four-wheel drive and gears to suit, automatically. It'll cross any sort of countryside you point it at, and you don't have to do a thing.

And all the while you get to enjoy the wonderful surroundings of the cabin. There's more leather in there than you can shake a nine-iron at, while the large infotainment screens add a generous serving of modernity. The Range Rover's boxy shape means there's loads of space in the back and the boot will swallow four sets of clubs, no problem. 

In truth, the Ford Mustang would look more at home parked outside a line-dancing class than a golf club, but then the beauty of an American muscle car versus a European sports car is that it is a lot more practical. How could it not be given those vast exterior proportions?

Granted, it's not the most nimble machine you'll ever come across, but this Mustang does at least get independent rear suspension, so it can deal with mid-corner bumps without bouncing you into the undergrowth in the charming way the older models did.

Anyway, what it lacks in finer cornering agility, it more than makes up for with good ol' fashioned straight-line firepower. The V8 (there's also the option of a  four-cylinder... you don't want it) blares out a Days of Thunder soundtrack that's pivotal to the Mustang experience, while sweeping the big 'Stang from 0-62mph in under five seconds.

Okay, so we tried to be a bit clever at the start of this piece by extolling the virtues of the old Mercedes-Benz E-Class Cabriolet and it's true, if you want a stylish way to carry your golfing clobber about, for the price, you'll not find anything better.

But if you want to find a stylish way to carry around as much golfing clobber as possible, you'll need the E-Class Estate. Load lugging machines really don't come finer, and while we have stated that some might find the inside a bit glitzy, confession time, we think it's lovely. Meanwhile, the boot's so long it makes an infinity pool seem finite. 

The beauty is that the big Merc can roll up its sleeves and gobble up any load you care to throw into it, but from the driver's seat, it feels as plush as you like, with soothing suspension, excellent sound insulation and a choice of engines that should keep everyone happy.