Best courses on England’s Golf Coast
In no particular order, unless you decide to believe otherwise, my top five are…
Formby Golf Club
Location: Formby, Merseyside
Train station: Freshfield (0.2 miles)
Green fees: From £285 ($380)
I have been fortunate enough to visit Formby on a number of occasions, and it blows me away every time.
Not only is it one of the most welcoming clubs you will ever visit, it’s also one of the best courses. Holes 6 to 11 is as good a six-hole stretch as you will play anywhere in the world, with a blind green, bunkers that play tricks on your eyes, and one of the more spectacular tee boxes you’ll ever stand on featuring here. (The photo at the top of this page really doesn’t do it justice.)
Make time to explore the magnificent clubhouse, too. The dining and snooker rooms double up as a museum to Formby’s storied past – and you won’t help but notice the giant hippopotamus head in the spike bar. Be sure to ask a member for the backstory on that one.
Not just one of my favorite courses on England’s Golf Coast, but one of my favorite courses of the 250-or-so I’ve played.
The West Lancashire Golf Club
Location: Blundellsands, Merseyside
Train station: Hall Road (0.1 miles)
Green fees: From £250 ($330)
As far as routing goes, West Lancs – as you’ll almost certainly know it – is one of the best you’ll ever play.
Accuracy over length is the key here, particularly on the splendid front nine – the highlights of which are the 3rd, one of the coolest par-3 holes you’ll ever play, and the driveable-on-the-right-day 7th.
The back-nine opens with a stretch of holes that stand among the best of any links course in the UK – including the 12th and 13th and their spectacular tee-box views out over the Burbo Bank wind farm in Liverpool Bay.
There are few golf courses in this country you could play every week for the rest of your life and no two rounds would be the same. West Lancs is one of them. You could argue it has the best collection of short holes on England’s Golf Coast.
And, despite what Sergio Garcia thinks, the food in the clubhouse is wonderful.
Royal Liverpool Golf Club
Location: Hoylake, The Wirral
Train station: Hoylake (0.3 miles)
Green fees: From £400 ($530)
Only four golf courses can claim to be part of an historic never-to-be-repeated calendar Grand Slam. Hoylake is one of them.
The home of Bobby Jones’ Open Championship victory has seen plenty of changes since that historic season of 1930, and the clubhouse is a shrine to the greatest amateur player to ever pick up a golf club.
Hoylake is the second oldest seaside layout in England, after Royal North Devon, and anyone who has had the pleasure of playing both will tell you they are both masterpieces in their own way, set out over largely understated linksland.
Renowned architect Tom Doak once said Hoylake “separates the true lovers of links golf from those who only sort of understand it”. If it’s spectacular views you’re after, you’re on the wrong course.
Instead, expect a remarkable array of quality golf holes which will test every aspect of your game, notably the run along the River Dee shoreline that culminates in the brand new par-3 15th, Little Eye, which will leave you scratching your head regardless of what you’re scratching on your scorecard.
Only Royal St George’s has hosted the Claret Jug more times on this side of Hadrian’s Wall, and there’s a reason the R&A bring golf’s oldest major back here as often as possible.
Royal Lytham & St Annes Golf Club
Location: Lytham St Annes, Lancashire
Train station: St Annes-on-the-Sea (0.7 miles)
Green fees: From £400 ($530)
It doesn’t take long to work out why Lytham is generally considered one of the sterner tests on the Open rota.
First of all, the opening hole is a par-3 that, depending on wind conditions, almost certainly requires anything from a short wood to a long iron – and who wants to hit any of those for their first tee shot?
Then almost the entire front nine runs down the right-hand side of this epic parcel of land that borders Lytham St Annes, Ansdell, and Fairhaven. So if, like me and millions of other golfers, you suffer from a bit of a slice, you’re going to spend an awful lot of time trying not to hit the train tracks.
But don’t let that deter you from pitting your wits against this magnificent layout. The stretch in the far corner, with the remarkable green complex at the 8th, the fantastically fun par-3 9th, the short dogleg 10th, and the 600-yard 11th making you feel like you’ve really earned your treat at the halfway house by the 12th tee.
As for the 18th, where Adam Scott famously blew his chances of getting his hands on the Claret Jug in 2012, it needs to be seen with your own eyes to believe just how treacherous a finishing hole it is. Gloriously wicked.
Hillside Golf Club
Location: Hillside, Merseyside
Train station: Hillside (0.2 miles)
Green fees: From £300 ($400)
It’s only separated from Royal Birkdale by a footpath, and much of its land is taken over by the R&A when The Open is next door, but Hillside deserves far more than to be thought of in this regard.
Indeed, Greg Norman once declared that Hillside’s “back nine holes are the best in Britain”. There have been plenty of reasons to disagree with the Shark over the years – this is not one of them.
The front nine is not to be sniffed at, either. It weaves its way out and back on a flatter parcel of land, but when you move to the par-3 10th, things really start to get interesting as you sweep up over the dunes and into the breathtaking stretch that overlooks the Irish Sea.
One might argue that Hillside is underrated. It’s certainly underappreciated.