We just got back from a great trip to England, playing a total of 9 courses in a little over a week. While it was an aggressive itinerary, we had little trouble getting around England and didn’t miss a single tee time. We arrived on Sunday, August 25 at 8:30, and then immediately drove to western England and played Royal Lytham & St. Anne’s the first day (this was the only scenario we could play this course), then Formby the next day, and Royal Birkdale the third day. The Vincent in Southport was outstanding, and we all loved staying in the heart of a great little town. We then based ourselves at the Twickenham Marriott for the remaining 5 nights, and played Sunningdale (Old & New), Swinley Forest (we added a second round because we loved it so much), St. George’s Hill, Royal Cinque Ports, and then finally Walton Heath (Old). While some on this site scoffed at staying in Twickenham, it was 30 minutes to 3 of the courses and 45 minutes to one of them while only 20 miles or so from central London. I would not recommend staying in central London with an aggressive itinerary, as it routinely took us an hour to get to London so the London-area courses would have been at least 90 minutes to get to every day.
Here are a few takeaways from the trip:
Everyone walks and carries, so don’t assume caddies are readily available. Proponents of walking in the US seem to sell Americans on the idea that golfers in the UK walk with a caddy. In England at least, every single club we played had a small caddy program. In one case, we didn’t request caddies until the morning of for a 12:30 tee time, and only one could be arranged. Nevertheless, the caddies we did have were outstanding. I think I saw one golfer playing all week in a cart and the vast majority walked either carrying their bag, or with a push / pull cart.
Heather is a very attractive alternative to fescue. We found the heather we played in the London-area to be preferable to the fescue. While the difficulty was often the same, it was easier to find the ball in heather. Heather seems easier to control as well. My favorite London-area course was Swinley Forest, which had the best mix of grasses, generally fairway, a cut of rough, then some fescue, followed by the heather. It was nice to have more space between the fairway and the heather.
Tee times were not too difficult. While there were some restrictions (Saturdays, tee times before noon, etc.), we ultimately played every single course we wanted to play except for Royal St. George’s, which had a tournament that week. Having done Ireland and Scotland in the last three years, England was clearly the easiest.
Not as many groups of American golfers. Despite the fact that England is a great golfing destination, we only ran into a handful of American golfers doing a similar trip. I suspect that 10X as many Americans do the trip to Scotland, and 5X do the trip to Ireland.
Playing the 13th hole at Royal Birkdale from the tips was a blast. While we played the recommended tees, we ended up all teeing off from the 13th at Royal Birkdale from the pro tees, which gave you the opportunity to see how offline Spieth’s tee shot was in 2017. Call it a par 5 if you want, but it was a lot of fun. I had tried first as a joke to block my tee shot towards the driving range, but there were other golfers on the range, so the caddies wisely directed me to play the hole differently! All our group (we ranged in handicaps from 1 – 14) made pars and bogeys from the tips and some of us tried the up-and-down shot as well.
Some golfers play with their dogs. I loved the fact that the London-area courses featured golfers playing with their dogs. I wish you could do that in the US.
“Championship” golf on the coasts, but generally not in London-area. All of the courses we played on the coasts had tips at 7,000 +, but only one in the London area had that option. This is merely an observation and made little difference in where we chose to play (generally the recommended tees in the 6100 – 6300 range). On another note, many of the London-area courses lease their land as well, and we were told Sunningdale’s lease is up soon, and may be substantially higher.
Either wear pants in the London-area courses or it gets confusing. It was unusually hot in London, so wearing shorts was more comfortable. However, at some clubs, you can only wear shorts if you have white socks that cover the ankle, or black socks that go to the knee. What a strange compromise! Nevertheless, the clubs were generally a lot less stuffy than what was listed on their website. For example, we all brought jackets, but we didn’t need them.
There are more non-golf things to do in England than Ireland / Scotland. This is probably simply a function of the population density of England, but there are just far more non-golf activities to distract you in England. We had a great time hanging out one night in downtown Liverpool, for example, and had a great dinner one night in Central London. We met a group of Americans that stayed an extra day for a soccer match.
Birkdale, Swinley Forest, and Sunningdale (Old) were our favorites. The quality of the courses was all very high. I liked Formby as much as Royal Lytham / St. Anne’s. I though Royal Cinque Ports was as good as the Old Course and pretty similar. Walton Heath was a slightly notch below the others in England, but that was largely due to a weak starting hole. There wasn’t one golf course that I wouldn’t love to play again.