Championship Golf Courses in the UK — Open Venues and Major Hosts

No country outside the United States hosts more of golf’s great occasions than Britain. The Open Championship — the oldest of all four majors, first played at Prestwick in 1860 — is rotated around a rota of links courses that represent the very best of the game as it was invented. The Ryder Cup has been contested on British soil for the better part of a century, with venues ranging from Gleneagles in Perthshire to Celtic Manor in South Wales. For golfers, playing these courses is a genuine bucket-list experience: to stand on the 18th at St Andrews, or drive at the famous Postage Stamp at Royal Troon, is to walk the same turf where the game’s greatest champions have risen and fallen.

The encouraging news is that most of these courses are accessible to visiting golfers — if you plan ahead. Some require a handicap certificate. Some operate a ballot system. One or two are famously restrictive. But with the right preparation, you can play the majority of them, and the experience will stay with you for life.

Here is your comprehensive guide to the championship courses of the United Kingdom — what makes each one special, how to get on, and what you can expect to pay.

The Open Championship Rota

The Open Championship rota currently consists of nine links courses, all of them in the United Kingdom (plus Royal Portrush in Northern Ireland). Each is a masterpiece of natural golf architecture, shaped as much by the wind, the sea and the land as by any human hand.

Royal St George’s, Sandwich, Kent

Royal St George’s hosted its fifteenth Open Championship in 2021, when Collin Morikawa produced a supreme display of ball-striking to claim the Claret Jug. The course sits amid the dunes of Sandwich Bay, a wild and undulating links where the wind off the English Channel can make any hole on the card play to a different character on a different day.

The club admits visiting golfers, and the experience is excellent. Green fees are approximately £275 for a round on the Championship Course. You will need to produce a handicap certificate — the standard limit is 18 for men, 24 for ladies — and it is strongly advisable to book several months in advance, particularly for summer. The clubhouse is traditional, the welcome is warm by the standards of the great English links clubs, and the golf is as challenging as you would expect from a multiple Open venue.

Sandwich is in east Kent, roughly 70 miles from London, making it a realistic day trip or the centrepiece of a short golf break on the Kent coast.

Royal Liverpool, Hoylake, Wirral

The Wirral peninsula sits between the Mersey and the Dee estuaries, and Hoylake — as Royal Liverpool is universally known — occupies a flat, inland-feeling stretch of linksland near the mouth of the Dee. Appearances deceive: this is one of the most strategically demanding courses in Britain, where the internal out-of-bounds stakes and subtle green contours have undone the greatest players in the world.

Hoylake hosted Tiger Woods’ majestic 2006 Open, won with a remarkable performance that required only one driver all week. It returned in 2014, when Rory McIlroy produced perhaps the finest major victory of his career. Green fees for visitors are approximately £200, and while the club is selective, it does welcome golfers with a handicap certificate on most weekdays and some weekends. Book a minimum of six months ahead for summer visits.

Royal Birkdale, Southport, Lancashire

Royal Birkdale is widely considered the finest links course in England, and it makes a compelling case. Set among towering sand dunes that shelter the fairways without removing the challenge of the wind, it is a fair, spectacular and entirely memorable experience. The greens are superb; the par threes are world-class; the 18th green, backed by the iconic art deco clubhouse, is one of the great settings in all of sport.

The club operates a ballot system for visitor tee times, and demand far exceeds supply. Your best approach is to contact the club well in advance — a year or more for peak summer dates is not unreasonable — and to consider visiting mid-week in spring or autumn, when the ballot is somewhat more forgiving. Green fees are approximately £250.

Royal Troon, Ayrshire

Royal Troon sits on the Firth of Clyde in South Ayrshire, with views across to the brooding lump of Ailsa Craig and, on a clear day, the hills of Arran. It is home to the Postage Stamp — the famous par three 8th, just 123 yards from the back tee — one of the most iconic holes in golf.

Visitors are welcome on the Championship (Portland) Course during the visitor season, which runs from April to October, on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. Green fees are approximately £300. Ladies are welcome as visitors, though the club only opened full female membership relatively recently. A handicap certificate is required, and booking several months ahead is essential.

The town of Troon also offers some excellent alternative courses — Prestwick, where the Open was born, is just a few miles north — making this part of Ayrshire one of the great golf destinations in the world.

Carnoustie Championship Course, Angus

Carnoustie is often described, with considerable justification, as the hardest golf course in Britain. It has broken Open fields in devastating fashion — the 1999 Open, when Jean van de Velde famously made a triple bogey at the last to throw away the championship, remains one of the most extraordinary moments in sporting history. In 2018, Francesco Molinari became the first Italian to win a major here, and the course played every bit as brutally as its reputation suggested.

What many visiting golfers do not realise is that Carnoustie is a public access course, operated by Carnoustie Golf Links (a joint venture between the local council and the golf clubs). Green fees are approximately £220 for the Championship Course in peak season — surprisingly affordable for a venue of this stature. No ballot is required; you simply book online or by telephone, though advance booking is strongly recommended in summer. A handicap certificate is not strictly required for the Championship Course, though you should be a competent golfer before attempting it.

St Andrews Old Course, St Andrews, Fife

The Old Course at St Andrews is the most famous golf course in the world. That is not hyperbole; it is simply a fact that golfers from every corner of the globe accept without argument. The Road Hole. The Valley of Sin. The Swilcan Bridge. The shared fairways of a course that has been played continuously for more than 600 years. St Andrews is not simply a course — it is the spiritual home of the game.

Access to the Old Course is controlled by the ballot system operated by the St Andrews Links Trust. Approximately half the available tee times are released through the ballot, with the remainder reserved for advance booking (which opens at 6am on the Monday before the playing week for resident golfers) or allocated to St Andrews Links members. To enter the ballot, you must register online and submit your entry by 2pm the day before you wish to play. Results are announced at 4pm.

Demand is intense, and success is not guaranteed — particularly in summer. Green fees are approximately £240 in peak season. A handicap certificate is required (24 for men, 36 for ladies).

If the ballot does not favour you, do not despair. The St Andrews Links Trust operates five other courses on the links: the New, Jubilee, Eden, Castle and Strathtyrum. The Castle Course, opened in 2008 and set on clifftops above the town, is a genuine championship layout in its own right. The Jubilee and New are outstanding links courses at considerably lower green fees. None of them is the Old Course — nothing is — but they are very fine golf courses that most visiting golfers thoroughly enjoy.

Muirfield, Gullane, East Lothian

Muirfield is the home of The Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers, the oldest golf club in the world, and it is the most architecturally celebrated course on the Open rota. The layout — two concentric loops of nine holes, the outer running clockwise and the inner anticlockwise — means that the wind comes from a different direction on virtually every hole, providing a supreme test of all-round golf.

Muirfield is also the most restrictive of the Open venues when it comes to visitor access. Visitors are admitted on Tuesdays and Thursdays only, and a jacket is required in the clubhouse (this is enforced). A handicap certificate is required, and green fees are approximately £330, which includes a traditional lunch. The club’s history with female membership has been controversial — they voted against admitting women in 2016 before reversing that decision in 2017 — but the course itself is beyond reproach.

Book as far ahead as possible. The atmosphere on visitor days is very special: Muirfield treats its visitors generously once they are through the door, and lunch in the clubhouse is an experience in itself.

Royal Portrush, Causeway Coast, Northern Ireland

Royal Portrush returned to the Open rota in 2019 after a 68-year absence, and Shane Lowry’s emotional victory in front of a home crowd on the Dunluce Links was one of the great Open moments of recent decades. The course returned to host the 2025 Open, cementing its place as a cornerstone of the rota.

The Dunluce Links is a magnificent course on the north Antrim coast, with views across to Rathlin Island and, on a clear day, the Scottish coast. Green fees are approximately £200+ for visitors, and the club is welcoming to golfers from across the United Kingdom. It is worth noting that Northern Ireland requires no visa for UK golfers — you travel on a domestic flight from most UK airports, and the journey from Belfast to Portrush is under an hour by car. The wider Causeway Coast area, including the Giant’s Causeway, makes this a wonderful short break destination.

Ryder Cup Venues Open to Visitors

The Ryder Cup has been played on British soil at venues ranging from the dramatic to the surprisingly accessible. Here are the major UK venues that welcome visiting golfers.

The Belfry Brabazon Course, Warwickshire

The Belfry hosted the Ryder Cup four times — in 1985, 1989, 1993 and 2002 — and the 10th and 18th holes by the lake are among the most recognisable in European golf. This is now a resort course, welcoming visitors seven days a week with green fees ranging from approximately £80 to £130 depending on the season. It is the most accessible of all the major Ryder Cup venues and an excellent choice for a golf break in the Midlands.

Celtic Manor Twenty Ten Course, Newport, Wales

Celtic Manor was purpose-built for the 2010 Ryder Cup, and the Twenty Ten Course — which uses a different configuration of holes for the Ryder Cup than the regular layout — is available to resort guests. Green fees are approximately £120. Newport is readily accessible from the M4, and the resort is an excellent base for exploring South Wales golf.

Gleneagles PGA Centenary Course, Perthshire

Gleneagles hosted the 2014 Ryder Cup on the PGA Centenary Course, and the result — a European victory captained by Paul McGinley — was one of the most joyful occasions in recent Ryder Cup history. The PGA Centenary, designed by Jack Nicklaus, is the longest and most exposed of the three Gleneagles courses, set against the backdrop of the Ochil Hills. Green fees are approximately £270 as part of the resort, and the hotel is one of Scotland’s finest. The King’s and Queen’s Courses — older, more intimate and very fine in their own right — are also available to resort guests.

Walton Heath Old Course, Surrey

Walton Heath hosted the 1981 Ryder Cup and remains one of the finest heathland courses in England, regularly cited in the top ten UK courses of all kinds. Visitors are welcome on Mondays to Fridays with a handicap certificate, at approximately £175. The course is set on the North Downs in Surrey, about 25 miles from central London, and the heather and silver birch setting is as beautiful as any inland course in the country.

Wentworth West Course, Surrey

Wentworth is the home of the BMW PGA Championship and has hosted the Ryder Cup on multiple occasions. The West Course — redesigned by Ernie Els in 2012 — is one of the most famous inland courses in England. Visitors are welcome, but green fees are among the highest of any inland course in the UK at £300+. The club is a private members’ club but accepts a limited number of visitor tee times.

Practical Guide: How to Play These Courses

Handicap Certificates

Most championship courses require you to produce a valid handicap certificate, issued through your home club. If you are a member of a golf club affiliated with England Golf, Scotland Golf, Wales Golf or Golf Ireland, your WHS handicap index qualifies. The standard limit at most Open venues is 24 for men and 36 for ladies, though some (including Muirfield) set it lower.

If you do not have an official handicap, you will be restricted to the more accessible courses. Obtaining a WHS handicap is straightforward through any affiliated club — your course guide to getting a golf handicap in the UK explains the process in detail.

Booking Ahead

For the Open rota courses, six to twelve months ahead is the absolute minimum for summer tee times, and even then, you may be disappointed at the most popular venues. The St Andrews ballot is a daily game of chance. Royal Birkdale’s ballot is competitive. If you have a specific date in mind — say, you are combining a golf trip with a trip to the Open itself — start planning at least a year in advance.

Spring and autumn offer the best combination of value and availability. April, May, September and October can provide conditions that are every bit as good as high summer, with shorter queues and lower green fees.

Scotland vs England: A Note on Value

Scotland’s Open venues — Carnoustie, St Andrews, Royal Troon, Muirfield — are, as a general rule, considerably more affordable than their English counterparts, and many are more accessible. Carnoustie is an outstanding case in point: a public access course at around £220, it is cheaper than several non-championship English courses. A week-long Scottish golf trip taking in several Open venues is entirely achievable at a reasonable budget.

Green Fees at a Glance

Course	Approx. Green Fee (Peak)	Access
Royal St George’s	£275	Weekdays, handicap required
Royal Liverpool (Hoylake)	£200	Weekdays, handicap required
Royal Birkdale	£250	Ballot system
Royal Troon (Portland)	£300	Apr-Oct, Mon/Tue/Thu
Carnoustie Championship	£220	Public access, book online
St Andrews Old Course	£240	Ballot or advance booking
Muirfield	£330	Tue/Thu only, jacket required
Royal Portrush (Dunluce)	£200+	Visitors welcome
The Belfry Brabazon	£80-130	Open to all, resort
Celtic Manor Twenty Ten	£120	Resort guests
Gleneagles PGA Centenary	£270	Resort guests
Walton Heath Old	£175	Mon-Fri, handicap required
Wentworth West	£300+	Limited visitor tee times

All green fees are approximate and subject to change. Check directly with the course before booking.

Plan Your Championship Golf Break

Playing even one course on this list is a profound experience. Playing several of them in a week is the stuff of golfing legend. Whether you base yourself in Ayrshire for a run of Troon, Prestwick and Turnberry, or use St Andrews as your hub for a Fife and Angus golf expedition, the infrastructure for championship golf tourism in the UK is excellent.

For related reading, explore our guide to the best links courses in the UK, our golf breaks guide, our Scotland golf guide and our guide to golf in Ireland.