The English Links Nobody Talks About

Everyone flies to Scotland. The smart ones stop in England first.

England has more links courses than Scotland. That's not a typo. From the Northumberland coast down to the Kent shoreline, from Lancashire's Fylde coast to the Norfolk salt marshes, the English coastline is threaded with links golf that rivals anything north of the border — often at half the price and a fraction of the demand.

The Kent Coast

Royal St George's in Sandwich has hosted The Open fifteen times. It's a proper championship links — fierce, unpredictable, with the kind of blind shots that make you laugh or swear depending on the outcome. Green fees are around $220 in peak season, which is significantly less than any Open venue in Scotland.

Next door — literally adjacent — is Royal Cinque Ports (Deal), a former Open venue with greens that run faster than most Americans have ever putted on. Prince's Golf Club completes the Sandwich triangle. You could spend three days here and play a different championship course each morning without moving hotels.

Rye Golf Club, along the coast in East Sussex, is one of the most exclusive and atmospheric clubs in England. The course runs through ancient dunes and the town of Rye — medieval, cobbled, stunning — is the perfect base.

The Lancashire Coast

Royal Lytham & St Annes, Royal Birkdale, Hillside, Formby, West Lancashire, Southport & Ainsdale — there are more Open Championship courses in a 30-mile stretch of Lancashire than any comparable area on earth. Liverpool's John Lennon Airport is the gateway.

This is industrial-heritage England — Blackpool, Southport, Liverpool — and the golf is embedded in the culture in a way that feels more democratic than Scotland's sometimes-elevated atmosphere. The courses are ferociously difficult, the green fees are reasonable, and the clubhouses serve the best post-round pie in Britain.

Norfolk and the East

Royal West Norfolk (Brancaster) is one of the most unusual courses in the world. At high tide, parts of the course are cut off from the mainland. You play with one eye on the sea and one on the clock. It's remote, eccentric, and completely wonderful.

Hunstanton, down the coast, is a classic links with some of the fastest greens in England. The Norfolk coast itself — big skies, salt marshes, seal colonies — is one of England's best-kept secrets. Americans who visit here tend to come back.

The Southwest

Saunton Golf Club in Devon has two championship courses running through the Braunton Burrows dune system, one of the largest in Europe. Royal North Devon (Westward Ho!) is the oldest links in England, founded in 1864, and still plays across common land shared with horses and sheep.

St Enodoc in Cornwall, where John Betjeman is buried in the churchyard beside the 10th tee, is a joyful links with the tallest natural bunker in the world — the Himalayas on the 6th. Trevose, further up the Cornish coast, is a family-friendly links with views across Constantine Bay.

Why England Before Scotland

If you're flying into London, spend two or three days on the Kent coast before heading north. The jet lag fades on English time. The links golf calibrates your game for what's coming. The green fees are gentler on the budget. And by the time you reach Scotland, you've already played courses that would be national treasures in any other country.

England is not the warmup act. It's the undercard that deserves headline billing.