Ardfin

Isle of Jura

We don’t often post a singular golf course on its own trip page, but we don’t often come across a golf course like Ardfin. This is a unique experience in a unique location and can be added on to almost any Scotland or Northern Ireland trip. Like so many other great remote golf courses, including Bandon Dunes and Cabot Links, this is golf’s Field of Dreams: build it and they will come. It is not easy getting there, and nor is it cheap, so you might as well take a helicopter.

What We Love About Ardfin

In 2010, Australian hedge fund manager Greg Coffey bought the Ardfin Estate on the Isle of Jura. Inspired by Kerry Packer, who created Ellerston, the uber-private golf course located 200 miles north of Sydney in Australia’s Hunter Valley. Coffey turned to Ellerston’s architect Bob Harrison to create something similar at Ardfin. A remote exclusive World Top-100 worthy golf course. (BTW, Ellerston is #77 in the world). You can hear Bob discuss the process on “The Thing about Golf” Podcast.

After a few years of private play only, outside play is welcome starting in 2021. While you will pay a pretty penny sterling, we are thankful for golf benefactors like Coffey to create such incredible courses. Always a passion play, rarely a money maker, Ardfin should be on your “Top Courses I Want to Play” list.

As with some of the other great old courses of Scotland, there are quirky obstacles and features like stone walls, ancient artifacts, ruins and walled gardens to navigate. Put this all on the country’s western coastline and soaring mountains and the setting is sublime.

The Ardfin experience is not just about the golf. The accommodations are outstanding, as you’d expect. The 18thC Jura House has ten rooms and is ripe for exclusive use, while Ardfin Quads had 13 rooms including a couple of apartments for those who want to stay longer.

Lastly, we love quirky tidbits, such as the band KLF Burning a Million Quid in the then-abandoned boathouse of the Ardfin estate.

Favourite Courses

• Ardfin: The only course on the Isle of Jura, perhaps the only golf course of its kind in the world.

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Ardfin can be added to most Scotland and Northern Ireland trips. Yet, we love equally remote Machrie, Machrihanish and Mach Dunes. A trip off the beaten path to these gems would be epic.

Cornwall & Devon

Royal North Devon

Stonehenge

Outlaw's New Road

Saunton Golf Club

Saunton Sands Hotel

Burnham & Berrow

Bath

Trevose Golf Club

Bovey Castle

St Enodoc Church Course flyovers - 6th hole

The Rugged Beaches of Britain

Though often overlooked by overseas travellers, perhaps due to the lack of Open rota courses, the golf cognoscenti know there’s a great golf trip in the South West Peninsula. Famous for its great beaches, the counties of Cornwall, Devon and Somerset are well endowed with terrific hotels, and two coastlines leading to some stunning links courses. This is exactly the type of destination that North Americans should seek.

What We Love About Southest England

After arriving at Heathrow airport, we start the journey westward towards the peninsula dangling off the south west of Great Britain.

Most will be anxious to hit the links, but the curious traveller might want a quick stop at the mysterious ancient wonder of the world, Stonehenge. Or, those who prefer more recent history, might stop at the Roman town of Bath for lunch.

If it is only about the golf, head straight to Burnham & Berrow, a traditional out-and-back links with a church in the middle of the course founded in 1890. At the end of the round, you’re a stone’s throw from beautiful beaches and the two fantastic courses (East & West) of Saunton Golf Club at the Saunton Sands Hotel. 

Continuing south, Royal North Devon is a must-play on your way towards the tip of the peninsula. From there, you move even further south to Cornwall, where our two favourite courses are unquestionably Trevose (Championship Course) and St. Enodoc (Church Course).

For your last stay on the peninsula, we recommend a memorable night at the stately Bovey Castle, a private home until Peter de Savary turned it into a luxury hotel.

Some like to be close to the airport before flying home the next day, if that is the case, it should involve spending the night at Coworth Park Hotel, which offers an excellent location and fine rooms (plus polo lessons and horseback riding, if you have some extra time!) alongside one more round at Sunningdale, Swinley Forest, or St. George’s Hill, all World Top-100 courses.

Favourite Courses

• Burnham & Berrow: An Open Championship qualification course that’s a Harry Colt-designed traditional out-and-back links with some great quirk, including a church in the middle of the course.

• St. Enodoc: Ultra-natural undulating fairways, humbling dunes and highly variable holes make this James Braid links a coastal gem. As a past client once put it, “On a sunny day, there are not many golf courses with as beautiful a view as the Church Course at St. Enodoc.” Check out this great video.

• Trevose: A windswept links with dramatic views across rugged coastline and golden shores.

• Saunton Golf Club: Two courses - East & West - which combine to be amongst the finest 36 holes of coastal links in England, set on an unspoiled coast, just north of a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve, Braunton Burrows.

• Royal North Devon: The oldest course in England still playing along its original fairways and the oldest links course outside Scotland, this is an absolute “must play”.

• Bovey Castle: If you’re going to stay there, you’ll want to play there, too. A fine tight parkland course nestled in the rolling valleys of Dartmoor National Park in Devon.

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Wales

Nefyn

Aberdovey

Royal Porthcrawl

Snowdonia

Portmeirion

Welsh

Golf in a Strange but Wonderful Land

And now for something completely different: Wales. Choose between two great trips. A northern one gives you with the option of moving on to the courses of Liverpool. A southern one lets you also do the courses of Cornwall. Or, even better, cross the Snowdonia Mountains that divide Wales and do both the north and the south.

What We Love About Wales

Few golf vacations are truly exotic, but this one is. Sure, you can find great courses, beautiful green landscapes and stunning views lots of places. But Wales adds a quirky culture that’s both fun and fascinating. In the North, we love Royal St. David’s, or as the locals call it, Clwb Golff Brenhinol Dewi Sant. And Porthmadog is great, especially if you also want to hike the mountains or visit Portmeiron, a charmingly weird town designed to look like an Italian village.

In the South, Royal Porthcawl is perhaps the best course in the country. But don’t miss Pennard, which rightfully bills itself as “The Links in the Sky” and provides spectacular views of a river valley and cliffs leading down to a deserted beach. Enjoy your rounds, but also revel in the experience of the people and the culture.

Taste local delicacies like Welsh Rarebit in Swansea, where Dylan Thomas grew up, and Laverbread in Mumbles, where Catherine Zeta-Jones is from. And just try to pronounce the names of the towns as you drive through them. This is one golf trip you never forget.

Favourite Courses

• Royal St. David’s: The medieval Harlech Castle, the Bay of Tremadog and the mountains of Snowdonia create a golf setting of remarkable beauty

• Aberdovey: A true links course located within Snowdonia National Park

• Porthmadog: The back nine is pure excitement and like any classic Braid course, the four par-3s all face a different compass direction

• Nefyn & District: Overlooking the Irish sea, this course bestows a special thrill—four holes on the isolated Lleyn Peninsula

• Royal Porthcawl: With a fun layout and Atlantic Gales that make it a real test of golf prowess, this former Top 100 course is still great

• Pennard: Called “The Links in the Sky” because the tumbling fairways are as much as 200 feet above sea level

• Southerndown: Perched high above Porthcawl with great views of the Bristol Channel

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Lancashire

Royal Liverpool

Liverpool

Royal Birkdale

Anfield

Royal Lytham

The Vincent Hotel

Hillside

All You Need is Lancashire

The coastline around Liverpool is deservedly known as the Golf Coast. Three of England’s four British Open courses—Royal Lytham, Royal Birkdale and Royal Liverpool—call this region home. All of them are historic, offer beautiful scenery, and present a worthy challenge. And when you’re not golfing, Liverpool is a great city to explore. 

What We Love About Lancashire

The Golf Coast offers options galore. Playing all three Open Rota clubs is an obvious, but fabulous, choice. But before that, you might want to start at Formby. The Ladies course affords an excellent opening round to get your irons working after your flight before taking on the longer track.

The area’s 18 courses are all within an hour’s drive, most much closer than that. But since many of them are along the rail line, we think taking the train to our rounds is a blast. Saturdays are members’ days at the clubs, making tee times hard to come by, so we love to take a day off golf and catch a football match at Anfield in Liverpool or at Old Trafford in Manchester.

Both Liverpool or the coastal town of Southport have good hotels and you can certainly stay in one for the whole week, though we prefer to spend a bit of time in both cities. We also include a night at the recently renovated Dormy House at Lytham and enjoy a formal dinner in the dining room. The Hard Day’s Night Hotel, in Liverpool’s Beatles Quarter, is excellent with just the right amount of kitsch. And be sure not to miss a Beatles tour with Jackie, our favourite Fab Four expert. 

Favourite Courses

• Royal Birkdale: Ranked #40 in the world, the fairest Rota course has played host to 10 Opens, most recently Jordan Spieth's remarkable win in 2017

• Royal Liverpool (Hoylake): With no lighthouses, mountains or wild undulations, this is not most conventionally pretty course, but it ranks #65 and is a fierce challenge, requiring supreme shotmaking when the wind is up

• Royal Lytham & St. Annes: This rugged links course, which ranks #61, features roughly 200 bunkers and while there are no views of the sea here, the wind and vegetation shout “seaside”

• Formby: The main course surrounds the Ladies one and offers a variety of vistas—from pines to heather to dunes

• Hillside: Located between Birkdale and Southport & Ainsdale, but with a different feel than either of them. Famous for its excellent back nine

• Southport & Ainsdale: Next to Hillside, and four years older, this fine James Braid course hosted two consecutive European-based Ryder Cups in the 1930s

• West Lancashire Golf Club: Every hole demands your full attention in a breeze and recent upgrades make the greens firmer and faster, but still playable

• Wallasey: The home of the Stableford scoring system boasts lots of history in the clubhouse, including what may be the only signed portrait of Bobby Jones, who qualified here before winning The Open in 1930

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Southeast England

Sunningdale

Royal St. George's

St George's Hill

Coworth Park

Windsor Castle

Ascot Racecourse

The Royal Treatment

Combining links courses on the coast and heathland courses in Ascot, this trip mixes variety and majesty. The gem is Royal St. George’s (aka Sandwich). Ranked #33, it’s the host of the 2020 Open Championship. But Sunningdale is equally regal and because we can’t decide between the Old Course and the New Course, we always play both. 

What We Love About Sandwich

We suggest starting in Kent, which is a two-hour drive from Heathrow. Or save time with a 45-minute helicopter ride that follows the Thames and gives you a great overhead tour of London along the way. For Royal St. George’s, book early and book on Tuesdays, as that’s the only day to play as a four-ball.

We also highly recommend the nearby Royal Cinque Ports, where you need to beware the ancient Roman road, a hazard on a couple of holes. On the way to Ascot, we like to play a round at Rye, an old traditional private club that allows visitors as two-balls only to keep the pace of play moving.

Once in Ascot, nothing beats a 36-hole day at Sunningdale—on two Top-100 courses, both designed by Harry Colt—with a delicious traditional lunch in between. Walton Heath also features 36 holes at a welcoming club that allows outside play on Saturdays. 

You can choose from a few great places to stay within 10 miles of Sunningdale, but our favourite is the Coworth Park Hotel, which offers an excellent location, fine rooms, polo lessons and horseback riding. We also love to watch the ponies and the people at the famous Ascot Racecourse.

Favourite Courses

• Royal St. George’s: Winding fairways, intimidating pot bunkers and wind that might be with you or agin you for the full round since this is not an out-and-back course

• Royal Cinque Ports: Just missed the cut for World Top 100 courses (four balls on Mondays and Tuesdays only)

• Rye Golf Club: Only 6,500 yards, but difficult so you have to make your shots. The two-ball rule means a two-hour-and-thirty-minute round

• Walton Heath (Old & New): As stern but fair tests of character and shotmaking, these heathland courses have few peers

• Sunningdale (Old): Ranked #29, this is one of the earliest inland courses and established a new standard in design

• Sunningdale (New): Some people prefer this charming, more muscular course, which is ranked #73

• Swinley Forest: A classic heathland course with understated beauty and tranquility, it vaulted to #55 with GOLF Magazine in 2020

• St. George’s Hill: The purple heather makes for a beautiful backdrop at perhaps the prettiest of all the heathland courses, which debuted at #86 in the world rankings

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