Does England have the best golf in the British Isles?

[Tommy Williamsen]

I love Ireland and Scotland but the wealth of golf in England just keeps astounding me.  It may not have the same number of quality  "links" courses, although that might be debatable as well,  but the number of quality parkland and heathland courses are great.

[Tommy_Naccarato]

Maybe the WORLD, but then you have to take Long Island and the Sand Belt into account. It evens it out.

[David_Tepper]

Tommy-

I agree with what you say. In fact, I think the stretch of coastline from Liverpool to St. Annes on the Lancashire coast line is probably the strongest quality to quantity ratio of golf links in the world- Hoylake, West Lancs, Formby, Southport Ainsdale, Birkdale, Hillside, Hesketh and Lytham St. Annes. That is 3 Open sites plus half-a-dozen or so quality courses within a 50-75 miles. Very tough to beat that.

DT

[Allen_Rebstock]

Expanding on Dave's Southport area courses throw in the courses in London's heathland belt area, Sunningdale, Woking, Swinley Forest, The Berkshire, Walton Heath, St. George' Hill. Then head to the Kent coast and you have Royal St. George's, Royal Cinque Ports, Princes then further west Rye. It makes on think.

Another great area is the courses in East Angelia particullarly Hunstanton, Royal West Norfolk, Cromer, Sherringham and then northward to Lincolnshire to play the two courses at Woodhall Spa.  Even further north Ganton and Notts.

[Paul Richards]

My take is that if you only look at the best 5 courses of the country, I'd take Ireland over Scotland or England or Wales.

But if you look at the top 10, it would be Scotland.

However, for the top 30 or 50 it would be England.  England is much deeper, even if the very top few are 'better' in the other countries.

 

[Tommy Williamsen]

Paul, If you only take links courses, I would agree.  If, however, you throw in heathland courses like Sunningdale, Walton Heath, The Berkshires, Swinley Forest, The Addington, St. George Hill etc I'll take England over Scotland for the top ten.  I might on the other hand take Ireland's top ten over England.

[Pete Lavallee]

Don't forget the southwest swing: Perranporth, St Enodoc, Westward Ho!, Saunton and Burnham&Burrow. Five very different but highly interesting links!

[Tom_Doak]

If you are counting any deeper than the top ten, then the answer is certainly England.  

If you stop at five it's Ireland; six to ten it's probably Scotland, although I haven't seen the more recent Irish contenders.

[ForkaB]

To me, it's not at all clear that Ireland trumps Scotland for a "top 5."  Ireland starts to break down after Newcastle, Portrush, Ballybunnion and Portmarnock.  What's next?  Lahinch?  Waterville??  Old Head???  Even so, I do not see any real superiority over Ireland's big 4 and any 4 of Scotland's "top 5"--Carnoustie, Dornoch, Muirfield, The Old Course and Turnberry (in alphabetical order).

As for the mass market, sure England wins when you go to the top 50 or so.  After all, England has always had 10-20 times the number of people as either Ireland or Scotland and probably 20-50 times the wealth (particularly in the "golden age").  No wonder that so many very good courses were built there at the turn of the last century.  What IS curious is how few truly great courses the English managed to sponsor and build, given its superiority of resources.  It is not the land, as England has just as much or more great golfing land as Soctland and Ireland.

I would re-phrase the question, as follows:

"Why did England produce such relative golfing mediocrity given such inherent socio-economic advantages?"

PS-I'd pose the same question for the NY-NJ-PA "Axis of Posh"...........

[Rick Shefchik]

Okay, Rich, I gotta ask -- did you leave Royal County Down off your Irish list because you don't think much of the course, or was it an oversight?

Haven't played it myself, but if I can get to the British Isles again, the plan is to go to Ireland instead of Scotland, and RCD is part of the plan. As of now, anyway.

[Chris Kane]

Rick,

I think Rich refers to RCD as "Newcastle".

[ForkaB]

Rick

Chris is right.  I call RCD "Newcastle" just as I call RT "Troon" and RDGC "Dornoch, and RL "Hoylake."  Perhaps its a reverse poseur thing (with 2 1/2 twists, degree of difficulty 3.3), but to me golf courses and clubs are what they are, and not what being "Royal" might or might not attribute to them.

Newcastle is great, and I will never argue with anybody who chooses to go play golf in Ireland over Scotland, or even Enlgand over the two of them.  All three are an embarrasment (did I spell that right?) of riches that should be enjoyed and not niggled over, IMO.

[Jack_Marr]

To me, it's not at all clear that Ireland trumps Scotland for a "top 5."  Ireland starts to break down after Newcastle, Portrush, Ballybunnion and Portmarnock.  What's next?  Lahinch?  Waterville??  Old Head???  Even so, I do not see any real superiority over Ireland's big 4 and any 4 of Scotland's "top 5"--Carnoustie, Dornoch, Muirfield, The Old Course and Turnberry (in alphabetical order).

Rich

I am not comparing Scotland and Ireland, because I don't know the Scottish courses well enough. There certainly wouldnt' be any shame in coming second to Scotland, but when it comes to Ireland's top courses, I think Lahinch should certainly be there, especially since the changes. I would prefer to play there than probably any other course. I also think that Enniscrone is good enough to sit amongst those mentioned.

[ForkaB]

Jack

I was trying to say that there is really not any discernible difference between Ireland's and Scotland's "top 5."  That's all.

Rich

PS--I love Lahinch.  It remains the only course in the world that I have played (and WALKED!) 54 holes in one day.  Of course that was in 1899, so I don't remember it that well.....  In those days, I equated it with Prestwick, Western Gailes, Westward Ho, Rye.  Today, I'd add Swinley Forest and Portsalon and even Painswick to that ilk.

[Jack_Marr]

Rich

Yeah, I understand. I like to promote Lahinch because I love it so much. I would have it beside Ballybunion in terms of quality, but that's just me.

54 holes in one day?! Were you dating Marian Jones at the time?

[Andy Levett]

 Of course that was in 1899, so I don't remember it that well.....  

If you've not been since 1899 you must go back to Lahinch, Rich. One of your contemporaries, a doctor from Leeds, carried out some very interesting work in the twenties.

[Mark_F]

Tommy Williamson:

It's not just the big names, either.  England )And Scotland and Wales), have any number of hidden gems that are well worth seeking out, are tremendous fun to play, all have a handful, at least, of holes you would want to play again and again, are are terrific value, to boot.

[ForkaB]

Andy

Next thing you'll be telling me is that Lahinch is now more than 9 holes and they don't use goats as "caddies" any more!  Say it ain't so.

Sic transit gloria fundi........

[Mark_Rowlinson]

If someone has the time to trawl through R&A Golfer's Handbook (or even the Times Guide), they might note down how many courses there are in each country, how many of those are in the excellent class, how many in the good class and produce some percentages for us to peruse, but, most certainly, it will not be me!

[Paul_Turner]

Good grief.  For the Isles, it doesn't matter how many people there are in England compared with Scotland or Ireland.  It's the land mass and how much was available.  England is one of the most densely populated nations anywhere and not much land is available for golf.

There are plenty of truly great courses in England.  Regardless of what the rankings think.

[Mark_Rowlinson]

Golf World's 2002 listing of the top 100 courses had 24 from Scotland, 21 from all Ireland, 6 from Wales, 48 from England, 1 from Isle of Man.  They had a large panel of judges (including Peter McEvoy) who scored against maxima of 40 for quality of test and design, 30 for visual appeal and enjoyment, 20 for fairness and presentation, 10 for ambience and history.

You'll be glad to know that neither The Belfry, Celtic Manor nor the new course at Gleneagles (all past or future Ryder Cup venues) made it into the top 100.  The K-club did, however, at 79th, Mount Juliet is as high as 51st, Druid's Glen made it in at 77th.

5th highest Irish course is The European (21st, after RCD [2], Portmarnock [7], Royal Portrush [, Ballybunion Old [10]) and close behind is Waterville at 23rd, ie above Co Louth [27], Lahinch [30], Co Sligo [44].  

England is light in the top 10 with only Royal Birkdale [5] and Woodhall Spa [9] but is well represented in the teens, 20s, 30s and 40s.

Scotland packs the top order:

Muirfield [1], Turnberry Ailsa [3], St Andrews Old [4], Loch Lomond [6], Carnoustie [12], Kingsbarns [13], R. Dornoch [15], Gleneagles King's [17], R Troon [20].

The course you really need to know about is Castletown, the IOM's only representative which lies a respectable 82nd.

[Mark_Rowlinson]

Want to know what came 100th?

Royal North Devon.

[ForkaB]

Good grief.  For the Isles, it doesn't matter how many people there are in England compared with Scotland or Ireland.  It's the land mass and how much was available.  England is one of the most densely populated nations anywhere and not much land is available for golf.

There are plenty of truly great courses in England.  Regardless of what the rankings think.

Don't get so sensitive, Paul!

If you really look at it closely, there is far more available golfing land in England than Scotland and Ireland combined.  Just remember that the middle of the latter 2 are OOB for golf (and people, now that you mention it), whilst mittelengerland is full of heathland waiting to be ravaged.

Having said this, there is a lot of very good golf in England, but not a commensurate amount of "great" golf.  After allowing for Sandwich, Birkdale, and Lytham after them you start getting into places (e.g. Hoylake, Rye) which are either too small or too hyped to really make it into "great" status--as are most of the "heathland" courses.

Does anybody (even you!) want to argue that Swinley is anywhere near as good as, say, Prestwick or even Western Gailes?  I wouldn't want that assignment..........

Cheers

Rich

[johnk]

This is just another offshoot of rankings arguments.  And rankings are lame.

This one Island has less than 1% of the land mass in the world, but at least 50% of the greatest golf courses (at least on my list .  Isn't that a miracle, and arguing about why England or Scotland has a slight advantage is just weird (unless you are a scot or brit

"Why did England produce such relative golfing mediocrity given such inherent socio-economic advantages?"

It's very odd to call England's golf mediocre, even relatively mediocre.  

Parsing whether Western Gailes is better than Swinley - also crazy.  Who cares?  They're both in the middle-tier for the Island they are on, and they'd be in the top-tier anywhere else in the world.

Using any size or density standard seems ridiculous to me:
England is what, 12 times more populous than Scotland, so it should have 60 "great" courses where Scotland has 5?!?  

Basically, the amazing thing is that the Island contains so much great golf, whether it's in Scotland or England or Wales.

So I'd put it this way - if I wanted to confine myself to one side of the border and be able to play a wide variety of joy-inducing golf, I think England would do just as well as Scotland.

[Paul_Turner]

Rich

All in good fun.  I know it irks the Scot in you, but I wonder why this thread comes up now and again on GCA?  Perhaps NAF, Ran, Tommy... are onto something, eh?

Swinley Forest is comfortably better than Western Gailes and better than Prestwick too.  It's probably the best inland course in GB&I with only the 18th being an weakish hole.  Holes 3,4,13,14,15 aren't inspired at WG and even the shore holes are somewhat repetitive in shape.  The loop at Prestwick 6-9, 14 and 18 are on the dull side.  If you include those 2 as "great" (I would for Prestwick since its best holes are unique), then England has plenty to match.

When you have 40 million people in such a small space, most of the countryside becomes farmland.

PS

Why aren't there more great courses in Ecosse?  They had the game for 400 years longer than the rest of us