The 10 best golf clubs in the UK
Choosing the ten best golf clubs in the United Kingdom is easier than counting how many angels can dance on the head of a pin — but not by much.
What makes a good golf club? One that has an acclaimed, testing and beautiful golf course, often by the sea, over which many championships are staged, certainly. A big practice ground and good chipping green are essential too.
One with a commodious, character-filled clubhouse of course. And one that also has a genial and welcoming membership.
It's not just one of these qualifications nor two but all three. The R&A (Royal & Ancient Golf Club) has a magnificent clubhouse overlooking the 1st and 18th holes of the world-famous Old Course at St Andrews — but the course is not the sole prerogative of club members so, with a gun held to my head, I am not including it in my list.
After that it becomes a matter of opinion. Knowing that I shall offend many golfers, here are not my ten best but ten of my best.
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Royal County Down, Northern Ireland
Royal County Down, Newcastle, Northern Ireland
Not just one of the world's best but one of the world's most beautiful golf courses too, set adjoining the bay of Dundrum in the Murlough Nature Reserve and with a backdrop of the Mountains of Mourne. Views in almost any direction are stunning. Play is traditionally in four balls. It was designed by Old Tom Morris, George Combe, Harry Vardon and Harry Colt — as distinguished a quartet as could be. It has a membership best described as welcoming and the traditional 'Hat Man' organises pairings for the Saturday matches, as he has done for 100 years.
Green fee: ask
Par: 71
Contact: golf@royalcountydown.org
Royal Lytham & St Annes, Lancashire
Royal Lytham & St Annes, Lytham, Lancashire
An aristocrat among golf clubs in Britain, this has hosted two Ryder Cups, 11 Open Championships and was where Tony Jacklin began the revival of European golf by winning the 1969 Open. It is an out and back golf course, hard by the sea — although the sea is not visible from it. It has a dormy house. Described by Bernard Darwin, grandson of the naturalist and a former golf correspondent of The Times, as 'a beast of a course but a just beast', some of the outward nine holes run parallel to a railway line, so an inaccurate drive on the second or third holes, say, could end on the 9.12 from Lytham to Blackpool.
Green fee: call 01253 724206
Par 70
Contact: bookings@royallytham.org
Royal Portrush, Co Antrim
Royal Portrush, Portrush, Co Antrim, Northern Ireland
The Dunluce Links — the only Northern Irish club to have staged the Open, first in 1951; again in 2019, when the Irishman Shane Lowry won; and next in July this year, for which nearly 300,000 tickets have been sold to spectators — is set among glorious sand hills. More than 60 national championships, British and Irish, have been staged at Royal Portrush. It is both stunningly difficult and stunningly beautiful, set among a triangle of sand dunes and overlooked by the remains of Dunluce Castle. Its 16th hole, aptly named Calamity Corner because of what golfers do or have done to them there, is one of golf's most famous par 3s.
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Green fee: £385
Par 72
Contact: info@royalportrushgolfclub.com
Royal Wimbledon, London
Royal Wimbledon, London
You could spend some time in SW19 4UW and still not see this club, the third oldest in England. It is tucked away off a common, down a lane and round a tight corner, but well worth a visit. On some holes lined with gorse and heather you cannot see a house and on most you do not hear the rumble of London traffic. Its clubhouse was once a six-bedroom family home, echoing to the sounds of excited children, and it retains a comfortable, welcoming feeling of a happy family home.
Green fee: ask
Par 70
Contact: rwgc.co.uk
Sunningdale, Berkshire
Sunningdale, Ascot, Berkshire
Though the New Course at this world-famous golf club in Berkshire is more demanding, the Old Course is more famous for being where Bobby Jones, the great American amateur golfer, played 33 strokes and had 33 putts in qualifying for the 1926 Open Championship. Many tournaments, including the annual Sunningdale Foursomes, have been held over this archetypical inland course with heather-lined fairways. The 2025 Senior Open will be played there in July this year. It is the favoured golf club for many showbusiness personalities.
Green fee: £325
Par 70
Contact: sunningdalegolfclub.co.uk
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Royal St George's, Kent
Royal St George's, Sandwich, Kent
Laid out among sand dunes outside the old port overlooking the English Channel (and nearer to France than London), this club has hosted the Open Championship 15 times, most recently in 2021. It has the rewarding springy turf of many seaside courses, sprawls over more than 300 acres and is known for the singing of larks overhead. The clubhouse, a former farmhouse, sits within what was once farmland and is warmed in winter by a roaring fire.
Green fee: £350
Par 70
Contact: office@royalstgeorges.com
Muirfield, Scotland
Muirfield, Gullane, Scotland
Officially known as the Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers, this is one of the oldest clubs in the UK, dating back to 1744, and is the third most used Open venue after St Andrews and Prestwick. Overlooking the Firth of Forth and favoured by lawyers from Edinburgh, it is considered perhaps the fairest golf course in the UK. It specialises in foursomes golf and has a reputation for providing members and guests with good food and wine. The American golfer Jack Nicklaus named Muirfield Village, his club in Dublin, Ohio, after this Scottish gem, where he won the first of his three Open Championships.
Green fee: £365 for one round, £560 for two on one day (with lunch)
Par 71
Contact: Muirfield.org.uk
Royal Porthcawl, South Wales
Royal Porthcawl, Porthcawl, South Wales
Arguably Wales's premier club. Situated west of Cardiff and east of Swansea, Porthcawl has a historically interesting and distinguished clubhouse almost next to the Bristol Channel. It's old, wooden, spike-marked and reeks of history, the perfect antidote to some of the big and brash modern clubhouses. It has a dormy house for overnight guests. The first three holes might be among the best three opening holes on any course and the downhill 18th, when played into a setting sun and a strong onshore wind, isn't bad either.
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Green fee: £225 to £250
Par 72
Contact: Office@RoyalPorthcawl.com
Rye Golf Club, East Sussex
Rye Golf Club, Rye, East Sussex
An unashamedly old-fashioned and traditional golf club set among the dunes a mile from the town of the same name. It is the venue for the annual President's Putter, competed for early in the new year by members of the Oxford and Cambridge Golfing Society. The Old Course, the better of the club's two courses, has nine holes to the east and nine to the west of the clubhouse and five short holes with devilishly difficult greens. Bernard Darwin said, 'The most difficult shots at Rye are the seconds to the short holes,' and described the par 3s as things of beauty.
Green fee: ask
Par 68
Contact: ryegolfclub.co.uk
Royal Birkdale, Southport
Royal Birkdale, Southport
Easily within reach of Liverpool and Manchester, this is the best of the courses that line the coast around Southport. It is a majestic links and the sea can be heard but not seen from some tees. The combination of the course and the clubhouse is striking: the course is one of the very best and usually produces good Open champions (ten in all so far) and has staged two Ryder Cups, the Women's British Open and Senior Open, the 1951 Walker Cup and the 1948 Curtis Cups. The art deco clubhouse is one of golf's most distinctive, once being described as resembling a seagoing liner grounded among sand dunes.
Green fee: £370 to £400
Par 70
Contact: secretary@royalbirkdale.com
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Huntercombe, Stoke Row
Huntercombe, Stoke Row, Buckinghamshire
In the Chilterns, northwest of Henley, is the 11th of my ten best because I am a member, as was Henry Longhurst, the broadcaster and my predecessor as golf correspondent of The Sunday Times. It welcomes visitors and dogs, specially dogs, and favours two-ball play. The clubhouse is gently distressed and the cracking course, which has only 13 sand bunkers, was designed by Willie Park Jr 124 years ago and has needed little updating since then. The membership is welcoming. It is the home course of Oxford University golfers. What more could you want?
Green fee: £130-£150
Par 70
Contact: huntercombegolfclub.co.uk
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