OPEN VENUES
Royal Birkdale, Southport, Merseyside, England
• ‘The Birkdale Open Experience: £565
Royal Liverpool, Hoylake, Wirral, England
• Great history with Old Tom
• 2025 Greens Fee: £350
Royal Lytham & St Annes, Lytham St Annes, Lancashire, England
• 2026 Greens Fee: £400
Royal St George's, Sandwich, Kent, England
- All players have a handicap index of 18.4 or less
- The Fried Egg Golf recommends playing 36 holes and it is the best of the Sandwich Coast courses
- Summer 2026: £400
Prince's, Sandwich, Kent, England
- 2025 High Season: £190 for weekend
- 27-holes
- The least course on the Sandwich Coast
Royal Cinque Ports, Deal, Kent, England
- 2026: £285 for Monday-Thursday
England is a mostly overlooked golf destination. South East England offers an unique combination of links and heathland golf.
Fried Egg Golf Trip 2027:
Courses Included: Royal St. George's Golf Club, Royal Cinque Ports Golf Club, Prince's Golf Club, Rye Golf Club, Woking Golf Club, Huntercombe Golf Club, and Denham Golf Club
UK Golf Guy - South of England, September 2027
Golf Courses on the Tour
West Hill Golf Club (Surrey Heathland)
Day 1: Classic Cuthbert Butchart heathland design framed by heather and pines.
Sunningdale Golf Club – Old Course (Berkshire Heathland)
Day 2 (Morning): Willie Park Jr.’s 1900 masterwork, widely considered one of the finest inland courses in the world.
Sunningdale Golf Club – New Course (Berkshire Heathland)
Day 2 (Afternoon): Designed by Harry Colt in 1923, offering a rugged, magnificent complement to the Old Course.
Royal Cinque Ports Golf Club (Deal) (Kent Coast Links)
Day 3: A historic two-time Open Championship venue featuring classic out-and-back dunes and a formidable closing stretch.
Prince’s Golf Club (Kent Coast Links)
Day 4: Host of the 1932 Open Championship (won by Gene Sarazen), featuring 27 holes across three distinct nine-hole loops (Himalayas, Shore, and Dunes).
Royal St George’s Golf Club (Sandwich) (Kent Coast Links)
Day 5: A 15-time Open Championship host, famous for its dramatic wild dunes, blind shots, and deep bunker complexes.
Swinley Forest Golf Club (Berkshire Heathland)
Day 6: Harry Colt’s personal favorite design, set through secluded pine woods and undulating heathland.
- Woodhall Spa (Hotchkin Course) (Lincolnshire): Often cited as one of the best inland courses in the UK.
- Hindhead Golf Club (Surrey): Designed by J.H. Taylor, featuring dramatic elevation changes.
- Royal Ashdown Forest (Old Course) (Sussex): Known for its natural, un-bunkered, and traditional layout.
- Liphook Golf Club (Hampshire): Highly regarded for its excellent, fast greens.
- North Hants Golf Club (Hampshire): Famous as the home club of Justin Rose.
- Piltdown Golf Club (Sussex): Known for its lack of bunkers, relying on natural heather and terrain.
- Crowborough Beacon (Sussex): Offers spectacular views and challenging heather-lined holes.
- Notts Golf Club (Hollinwell) (Nottinghamshire): A challenging course often ranked alongside top heathland venues.
- Tadmarton Heath (Oxfordshire): A traditional, natural, and friendly heathland course.
- Surrey & Sussex: The "Sand Belt" area includes top-tier, yet accessible options like Hindhead, Liphook, and Royal Ashdown.
- Lincolnshire: Home to the premier Hotchkin course.
- Midlands/Yorkshire: Features gems like Notts (Hollinwell) and Alwoodley.
10 Hidden Gems in England by Tony Dear, LINKS Magazine
The Top 10 Golf Courses In England by Will Porter, MyGolfSpy, 7/24/2024
45 Of The Best Heathland Golf Courses In The UK by Elliott Heath, Golf Monthly, 16 December 2021
Best Heathland Golf in England’s Famed Sand Belt by David DeSmith, LINKS Magazine
12 golf courses near Royal Birkdale you absolutely must play during Open week by Alex Perry, July 4, 2026, Today's Golfer.
Ashridge (Hertfordshire, 33 miles north of Heathrow)
In 1920, Stafford Vere Hotchkin returned to England following World War I and bought his home course—Woodhall Spa. He soon set about remodeling it, calling on C.K. Hutchison for assistance. After completing the job in 1926, Hotchkin set up a design, construction, maintenance, and seed consultancy called Ferigna which Hutchison and Hotchkin’s friend Sir Guy Campbell would join in 1928. All wealthy individuals, the “three Majors” were far from prolific designers, but did produce a couple of absolute stunners together—West Sussex, which opened in 1930, and Ashridge, a grand, heavily wooded layout at the northeast end of the Chiltern Hills an hour northwest of London, in ’32. Tom Simpson made some changes seven years after it opened.
Canterbury (Kent, 88 miles east of Heathrow)
Douglas Grant, son of a wealthy San Francisco businessman, traveled to England in 1915 to study business. There, he married Elsie Rutherford, daughter of the Lord Mayor of Liverpool, and became a member of Walton Heath. In 1916, he took Elsie back to California to escape WWI and, because of his success as a golfer (multiple prestigious amateur titles) was given the job of co-designing Pebble Beach with Jack Neville. Shortly afterwards, he returned to England and his journeys from London to the Kent coast, where he was a regular at Royal St. George’s and Royal Cinque Ports, would take him through Canterbury. In 1927, the war office financed construction of a course in the cathedral town at Scotland Hills. Harry Colt designed the beautifully wooded layout and Grant was given the honor of being made the club’s first Captain.
Goswick (Northumberland, 54 miles southeast of Gullane)
The majority of these courses are within pretty easy driving distance (2–3 hours) of London, but you’ll have to save Goswick for the drive up to Scotland. Just 15 minutes south of the border, Goswick is a terrific links founded in 1890, since when it has been altered by Willie Park Jr., James Braid, and Fred Hawtree. Menacing North Sea winds can turn it into quite a handful, justifying its status as an Open Championship Regional Qualifying course.
- Several value-packed offers
• Great Courses of Britain & Ireland: Trevose
- Seen on the World's Most Scenic Railway
- ‘Friendliest Club on the Coast’
- Bed & Breakfast on site: £85.00 stay ad play
- £35.00
- Recommended by my taxi driver on the way to the Wheatsheaf
- Maximum 2024 Greens Fee: £75
- Oldest golf club in England
- St George's Hill Golf Club, Golf Club Rd, Weybridge KT13 0NL: £240
- Highly recommended by Fried Egg Golf
- Sunningdale Golf Club, Ridgemount Rd, Ascot SL5 9RR
- Old: £325
- New: £325
All players are required to hold a current valid handicap index with a maximum of 18.4 for men, and 24.4 for ladies. The Courses are not suitable for novice golfers or beginners.
- Swinley Forest Golf Club, Bodens Ride, Coronation Rd, Winkfield Row, Ascot SL5 9LE
- Walton Heath Golf Club, Deans Lane, Walton-on-the-Hill, Tadworth KT20 7TP
- Old
- New
- West Sussex Golf Club, Golf Club Ln, Wiggonholt, Storrington, Pulborough RH20 2EN: £130
- Liphook Golf Club, Wheatsheaf Enclosure, Liphook GU30 7EH: £135
- Hayling Golf Club, Sinah Common, Links La, Hayling Island PO11 0BX: £100
- Blackmoor Golf Club, Firgrove Rd, Whitehill, Bordon GU35 9EH: £65
- Visitors should register at the Pro Shop and be ready to show their handicap certificates on arrival.
- Woking Golf Club, Pond Rd, Woking GU22 0JZ: £180
- Recommended by No Laying Up crew
- Very welcoming to visitors
- West Hill Golf Club, Bagshot Rd, Brookwood, Woking GU24 0BH: £150
- Worplesdon Golf Club, Heath House Rd, Brookwood, Woking GU22 0RA: £175
- Visitors are welcomed weekdays and should have official Handicaps (Men & Juniors 20 or below and Ladies 30 or below)
- Across the channel from Cardiff
- Host of 2024 and 2026 Open Qualifying Final
- Offers 27 holes with a Championship Course and a Channel Course
- Opened in 1890
- Has a Dormy House with Stay & Play options
- 2025 Green Fees: £195, £100 after 4 p.m.
- 2025 Channel Course: £28
- Championship Course Handicap Index Limit 22 Men
- Championship Course is too long for hickories
- Recommended by my taxi driver on the way to the Wheatsheaf
Surrey, England
When you think of golf in England, your thoughts may go first to its Open-rota links gems or tony parkland courses. But just an hour west of London there’s something completely different: heathland golf. And not just any heathland golf—the best in the world. The Surrey region is a bastion of quiet English gentility, with charming villages, farms bordered by dense forest, and an excellent list of area restaurants and hotels. Top courses in the area include the Harry Colt-designed Old and New Courses at Sunningdale, which are widely regarded as two of the best of its species in the world. The Old Course at Walton Heath is another standout. Site of the 2023 Women’s Open Championship, it’s a Golden-Age track that was designed by Herbert Fowler and was the home course of five-time Open Champion James Braid. Next is Swinley Forest, another Colt design that’s a true shotmaker’s course, with one of the world’s best sets of par threes. At The Berkshire, two more Herbert Fowler courses await. Both wind up and down through hilly corridors of heather and old-growth trees to creatively bunkered greens whose putting surfaces are uniformly wild. The Red Course is unique in that it offers six par threes, six par fours, and six par fives—which makes for lots of birdie opportunities. If time permits, put Hankley Common on your list, too—where the golf is anything but common—and the courses known as the “Three Ws,” Worplesdon, Woking, and West Hill, all historic, standout tracks. Surrey’s also where you’ll find the Wentworth Club, with its three storied parkland courses. Wentworth is completely private, reserved for A-listers like Rory McIlroy and Premier League footballers. But if you can finagle an invite, don’t miss the opportunity.
WOODHALL SPA, LINCOLNSHIRE
Woodhall Spa (Hotchkin)
Stafford Vere Hotchkin was born in the rural English town of Woodhall Spa in 1876 and died there in 1953. In between, he was the heart and soul of the golf course named for him. Located approximately 150 miles north of London, Woodhall Spa was an old Victorian spa—a resort town—and enjoyed its first golf courses in 1890. Soon after, urban sprawl did them in—but the club itself was spared after local landowner (and club member) S.V. Hotchkin leased the club some land, which eventually yielded a new layout from Harry Vardon in 1905. No less than H.S. Colt significantly refined the course between 1911 and 1914, but the course didn’t come into its own until 1920, when Hotchkin purchased the club and took over operations and maintenance and then in 1922, when he renovated the course himself. Four years later he joined forces with fellow World War I veterans Cecil Kay (C.K.) Hutchinson and Guy Campbell and not only revised Woodhall Spa into the formidable, sternly bunkered heathland test it is today, but the trio embarked on a short but successful six-year run designing and reworking courses all over England and Scotland, including a renovation of North Berwick in 1930.
Simultaneously, Hotchkin journeyed to South Africa on multiple occasions in the 1920s and 30s, creating Humewood in 1930—currently ranked among the country’s top 10—and renovating Durban Country Club in 1928, for seven decades ranked as South Africa’s best course and venue for the 2025 South African Open. Hotchkin may be mostly an unknown quantity for American audiences, but for Golden Age architecture fans in the U.K. and South Africa, it’s almost an insult to call him obscure.
(https://linksmagazine.com/the-5-most-obscure-architects-of-the-links-100/)
Leasowe Golf Club, Leasowe Road, Moreton, Wirral, CH46 3RD
- True Links
- 20 minutes west of downtown Liverpool
- Very reasonable green fees
- True Links
- Summer 2026 Weekend Green Fee: £255
- Initially designed by Old Tom Morris in 1891
- Neighbour of Leasowe
- True Links
- Founded in 1873
- Summer 2025 Green Fee: £250
- Open Qualifying Course in 2026
- 30 minutes north of Liverpool, on the way to Formby
- Caddies are available
- On the long side for hickories
- True Links
- 45 minutes north of Liverpool by train
- Summer 2025 Weekend Green Fee: £300
- Dormy accommodations: 1 Night, 36 Holes (2 Days): £485
- Founded in 1884, designed by Wille Park Jr.
- Looks like a great place to visit
- There's also a Ladies course, an independent club
- Course Diaries: Formby Golf Club w/ Ian Jamson from Cookie Jar Golf Podcast, Nov. 6, 2025
- Easy train ride from Liverpool
- True Links
- An hour north of Liverpool
- H.S. Colt designed, opened in 1912
- 2025 Green Fees: £20
- MUST PLAY!
- True Links
- An hour north of Liverpool
- Summer 2025 Weekend Green Fee: £175
- True Links
- 75 minutes north of Liverpool
- Summer 2025 Weekend Green Fee: £65
- True Links
- 70 minutes north of Liverpool
- Summer 2025 Weekend Green Fee: £15545
- Opened in 1901
- True Links
- 30 minutes north of Liverpool
- Summer 2025 Weekend Green Fee: £275
- True Links
- 2 1/2 hours north of Liverpool
- Summer 2025 Weekend Green Fee: £45
- Heathland Course
- Less than an hour southeast of Liverpool
- Designed by William Fowler
- A Matter of Course by Philip Truett
- Host of AIG Women's Open prequalifying in 2025
- Summer 2025 Weekend Green Fee: £165
- No real water
