Best Golf Courses in Devon — Links, Clifftops and Moorland

Ask most English golfers to name the country’s finest links destinations and you’ll hear Lancashire, Norfolk, the Isle of Man, possibly a concession to Kent. Devon will not feature on the list — and that is one of English golf’s more persistent blind spots. Because Devon has Saunton, and Saunton alone would put the county in serious contention. Add the oldest golf club in England at Westward Ho!, dramatic clifftop courses above the South Devon coast, a pair of unusual moorland tests on the edges of Dartmoor, and one of the strangest sea-level links courses in the country on the sands of Dawlish Warren, and you have a county whose golfing credentials are genuinely exceptional.

The catch — and there is always a catch — is that Devon is not easy to reach. The road and rail connections from London are slower than the county deserves, North Devon in particular sits at the end of very long approach roads, and the whole place runs at a pace that requires visiting golfers to adjust their expectations about how quickly things happen. That adjustment is, in every respect, worth making. Golf in Devon rewards the golfer who builds time around the course — who stays a few nights, explores the coastline, eats well, and approaches the whole enterprise as a proper expedition rather than a day trip. This guide will help you plan exactly that.

North Devon: The Golfing Heartland

The north Devon coast between Braunton and Hartland Point contains some of the most dramatic links land in England, and it begins — because everything here begins — with Saunton.

Saunton Golf Club

Saunton Golf Club occupies a tract of dune land on the southern edge of the Braunton Burrows, a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve and one of the largest sand dune systems in the United Kingdom. The club runs two courses — the East and the West — and together they make Saunton one of the premier two-course golf destinations in England.

The East Course is the championship track and, by any measure, one of the finest links courses in England outside the Open rota. It has hosted the English Amateur, the Ladies’ British Open Amateur, and numerous national and regional championships, and the course carries that weight of competitive history without becoming pompous about it. The routing runs through and around the Burrows in a way that feels entirely natural — holes rise and fall with the dune ridges, greens are set into hollows or perched on plateaus, and the fairways, while generally more generous than at the most punishing Scottish links, demand that you think carefully about position rather than simply bludgeoning the ball as hard as possible.

The East Course’s par threes are outstanding — the fourth and the fifteenth are both long, demanding holes that play quite differently depending on wind direction — and the closing stretch from the fifteenth home is as good a finish as Devon golf produces. At roughly 6,700 yards from the back tees, the course plays every yard of its length when the wind arrives from the Bristol Channel, which it does with considerable regularity.

The West Course was for many years treated as Saunton’s secondary offering, but this is an underestimate that the course doesn’t deserve. The West is shorter and marginally more forgiving than the East, but it is still a proper links challenge that would be the finest course at many clubs. The fairways are different in character — slightly broader in places, with different dune profiles creating different visual challenges — and many golfers who play both courses on the same day find that the West provides a pleasing contrast rather than merely a lesser version of the same experience. Green fees at Saunton are very reasonable relative to the quality on offer — considerably lower than comparable links courses in England — and the club’s membership structure means that visitor access is generally well-managed without excessive restriction.

A word about the clubhouse: it is comfortable, the staff are helpful, and the sandwiches served in the bar area at lunchtime are exactly what a golfer on a winter’s morning deserves after nine holes into a headwind off the Bristol Channel. That matters. Saunton is the rare course where the whole day — getting there, warming up, playing, eating, heading home — feels properly looked after.

Royal North Devon Golf Club (Westward Ho!)

Royal North Devon holds a distinction that no other golf club in England can claim: it is the oldest golf club in England, founded in 1864, and it has been in continuous operation on the same ground ever since. The club at Westward Ho! predates the founding of almost every other golf club in the country, and it was the place where several of the game’s formative English figures — notably Horace Hutchinson, five times Amateur champion in the 1880s — learned to play.

The course itself is unlike anything else you will encounter. It occupies a stretch of common land — note: common land, not private links — beside the town of Westward Ho!, and because it is common land, it is also used by local residents for walking, horse-riding, and casual recreation. The Great Sea Wall separates the course from the beach, and cattle roam the course as they have done since the club’s founding. This is not ornamental tradition: the cattle are actual grazers, and the course is genuinely shared with the local community in a way that feels both unusual and entirely right.

The natural hazards at Westward Ho! include a dense belt of rushes — known locally as the burrows — that crosses several fairways and is among the most savage rough in England. Balls that enter the rushes are rarely found, and the burrows penalise inaccuracy in a way that no artificially constructed hazard quite matches. The course also has what is known locally as the Burma Road — a stretch of holes that runs along the Great Sea Wall, directly exposed to the Bristol Channel winds, where conditions can be genuinely wild.

Westward Ho! is a public course — technically, because it occupies common land, anyone can walk across it — and green fees are among the most accessible of any links course in England. This is a course where you pay a fee to the club rather than to a private landowner, and the fees reflect that. If you’re looking for a genuine piece of English golf history at an accessible price, Westward Ho! is unmissable. The golf is harder than it looks, the setting is unlike anything else, and the club’s history is all around you.

Ilfracombe and Woolacombe Golf Clubs

North Devon contains several smaller clubs that deserve mention for golfers spending multiple days in the area. Ilfracombe Golf Club sits on clifftop land above the town with views across the Bristol Channel, offering a shorter but scenic round that is genuinely enjoyable on a clear day. Woolacombe Golf Links, though a relatively recent addition to the county’s portfolio, plays on ground above one of England’s finest beaches and has the kind of setting that photographs exceptionally well. Neither course is in the same conversation as Saunton or Westward Ho!, but both serve their purpose well as additional options for a multi-day North Devon golf break.

South Devon: Clifftops, Estuaries, and Parkland

South Devon’s golfing character is entirely different from the north. Here the courses are shaped by the complex coastline of the South Hams — the deep estuaries, the clifftops above Start Bay and Bigbury Bay, the rolling farmland behind the coast — and the result is a collection of courses that are scenic, varied, and in some cases genuinely quirky.

Thurlestone Golf Club

Thurlestone sits on the clifftops above Thurlestone Bay, near Kingsbridge, and it occupies a piece of ground that would command attention even before a ball was struck. The views from several holes across Start Bay and the Salcombe Estuary are among the finest in Devon golf — on a clear summer evening, with the sea glittering below and the headlands stretching away to the east, the setting approaches the kind of natural grandeur that golfers usually have to travel to Scotland to find.

The course itself is not long by modern standards, but it is deceptively testing: the clifftop terrain creates holes that are both visually demanding and technically specific, and the sea breeze, which is almost constant, adds a layer of difficulty that the course’s length alone doesn’t convey. Thurlestone is a members’ club that welcomes visitors, and it is at its best in summer when the conditions are settled and the surrounding scenery is at its most spectacular. There is accommodation very close to the club — Thurlestone is a small village — and a round here combined with a meal and a night in the area makes for one of Devon’s most pleasant golf experiences.

Bigbury Golf Club

Bigbury Golf Club may have the most unusual approach of any course in Devon. The club sits on Burgh Island — or rather, on the headland above the tidal causeway that connects Burgh Island to the mainland at Bigbury-on-Sea — and the drama of the location colours the whole experience. The famous Art Deco Burgh Island Hotel stands at the far end of the causeway, and on a misty morning the whole scene has a slightly otherworldly quality.

The course is a clifftop layout that makes full use of its spectacular position: the views down the Avon Estuary and across Bigbury Bay are constant companions, and several holes play along the edge of ground that drops sharply to the sea. The golf itself is challenging in the way that clifftop courses always are — the ball behaves unpredictably in the coastal breeze, the terrain rewards those who know their distances accurately, and the mental challenge of playing alongside a very significant drop tends to tighten grips more than the course’s par suggests it should. Bigbury is a friendly, visitor-welcoming club and the whole experience is one of Devon’s genuine treats.

Dartmouth Golf and Country Club

Dartmouth Golf and Country Club occupies a manor house and grounds near Blackawton, inland from the town of Dartmouth, and offers a more conventional South Devon parkland experience than the clifftop courses. The course is set in valley and ridge terrain, with a layout that requires both accurate driving and careful approach play to the elevated greens. The hotel and spa facilities make Dartmouth a natural choice for golfers looking to combine a course visit with a longer break in the area. Green fees and accommodation packages are competitive, and the course is generally available to visitors without the booking restrictions that more exclusive private clubs impose.

Churston Golf Club (near Brixham)

Churston is one of Devon’s lesser-known pleasures — a mature parkland course in the South Hams area near Brixham that offers genuinely good golf without the marketing budget or the reputation of the county’s better-known clubs. The course plays through mature woodland and across open ground in a combination that keeps the routing interesting, and the greens are consistently well-presented. For golfers basing themselves in the Torbay or South Hams area, Churston offers an excellent afternoon’s golf at a very reasonable green fee.

Dartmoor’s Edge: Moorland Golf

The eastern and western flanks of Dartmoor produce a quite different kind of golf from the coastal alternatives — open, breezy, fast-draining moorland courses where the views are expansive and the turf has a quality that parkland courses in more sheltered positions rarely achieve.

Tavistock Golf Club

Tavistock Golf Club sits at the western edge of Dartmoor, above the town, on moorland that gives the course its defining character. The elevated position means panoramic views — across the Tamar Valley into Cornwall on clear days — and a course that drains extremely well even in Devon’s wetter months. Tavistock is a moorland course in the tradition of the great northern moorland clubs: the fairways are firm and fast, the rough is genuine rough rather than manicured fringe, and the ball in summer can run considerable distances in ways that demand a different approach to club selection.

The course is member-owned and visitor-friendly, and green fees are very reasonable for the quality of the experience. Tavistock is particularly good in late summer and autumn, when the moorland is at its most dramatic and the turf is at its firmest. If you’re visiting the western Dartmoor area — as many golfers who combine a trip to Cornwall with a Devon stopover do — Tavistock is strongly recommended.

Yelverton Golf Club

Yelverton occupies similar moorland territory to Tavistock but on the south-western edge of Dartmoor, closer to Plymouth. The course is another moorland layout with excellent drainage and good views, and like Tavistock it offers a kind of golf that visitors more accustomed to parkland conditions often find unexpectedly demanding. The ball behaviour on firm moorland turf — where it can release through greens and run off fairways in ways that soft parkland doesn’t prepare you for — catches out many first-time visitors.

Yelverton has a long history and a devoted local membership, and the club’s character reflects both. Green fees are accessible and the course is available to visitors throughout the week. For golfers based in Plymouth or the south-west Dartmoor area, Yelverton is the natural local choice.

Exeter and Mid Devon

Exeter Golf and Country Club

The Exeter Golf and Country Club provides Devon’s county town with a solid, well-maintained parkland option that covers most of the requirements a visiting golfer might have: a proper 18-hole course, good practice facilities, a comfortable clubhouse, and visitor green fees that are very reasonable for a day’s golf. The course plays through gently undulating parkland to the east of the city and is sensibly designed without the artificial difficulty that some clubs introduce to make their course seem harder than it is. Exeter is a useful base for exploring Devon’s wider golfing offer, and the club serves that function well.

Warren Golf Club (Dawlish Warren)

Warren Golf Club is, by some distance, the strangest golf course in Devon, and quite possibly in England. The course occupies Dawlish Warren — a sand spit that juts across the mouth of the Exe Estuary — and it is subject to tidal flooding, which means that the course is occasionally unplayable and occasionally changed by the sea in ways that most greenkeepers do not have to anticipate. The terrain is pure links on sand: firm, fast, and covered in the kind of natural vegetation that grows on sand spits — marram grass, sea buckthorn, and low dune scrub that forms some of the most unpredictable rough in Devon.

Warren Golf Club is not a destination course in the way that Saunton or Westward Ho! are destination courses. It is, however, a course that serious golfers interested in the full variety of what English links golf can offer should experience at least once. The setting is genuinely unusual — with the Exe Estuary on one side, the open sea on the other, and the railway running directly past the course on the embankment above the beach — and the golf has the authentic, slightly anarchic quality of courses that have been fighting the sea for generations. Green fees are modest and the club is visitor-friendly.

Green Fees at a Glance

Devon’s golf covers an impressive range of price points:

Public access / very accessible (Westward Ho!, Warren Golf Club, Ilfracombe): approximately £15–£35
Visitor-friendly clubs (Saunton East and West, Thurlestone, Bigbury, Tavistock, Yelverton, Churston, Exeter): approximately £40–£85
Resort and country club options (Dartmouth Golf and Country Club): approximately £50–£90, with accommodation packages available

Saunton’s green fees are, relative to the quality on offer, genuinely reasonable — the East Course is easily comparable to links courses elsewhere in England that charge considerably more. This is partly a function of Devon’s remoteness; the market for visitors willing to make the journey keeps prices grounded in a way that courses in more accessible locations cannot afford to be. It is one of several reasons why Devon golf represents exceptional value.

Getting to Devon for Golf

Devon’s principal challenge as a golf destination is access, and it’s worth being honest about this rather than pretending otherwise.

By train: Great Western Railway runs services from London Paddington to Exeter St Davids in approximately two hours, which is very usable. However, once you’re in Exeter, you need a car for almost all of the county’s golf destinations — including Saunton and Westward Ho!, which are 50 miles and 70 miles from Exeter respectively. The train works well as far as Exeter; beyond that, a hire car or your own vehicle is essentially essential. Driving to North Devon from Exeter via the A361 takes approximately 50 minutes to Barnstaple, and a further 20–30 minutes to Braunton and Saunton.

By car: The M5 is the primary route into Devon, exiting at Junction 27 (Tiverton) for North Devon via the A361, or continuing to Junction 31 (Exeter) for the city and South Devon. The A361 — North Devon Link Road — is a good dual-carriageway as far as Barnstaple and makes the journey to Saunton very manageable. Allow around three and a half hours from London via the M5 without traffic; bank holiday travel on the M5 through Somerset can add significantly to this.

Basing yourself in Devon: For North Devon golf, Saunton itself has an excellent hotel — see below — and Braunton and Barnstaple offer a range of accommodation within easy reach of both Saunton and Westward Ho!. For South Devon golf, Kingsbridge or Dartmouth make sensible bases for the South Hams courses. Plymouth serves as a useful hub for the Dartmoor edge courses and has a wider range of accommodation and dining options.

Accommodation: The Saunton Sands Hotel

If you’re visiting North Devon for golf and you want the complete experience without complication, the Saunton Sands Hotel is the default answer. The hotel sits above the beach at Saunton, has direct access to the dunes and a short drive to the golf club, and offers comfortable rooms, decent food, and a spa that will feel extremely welcome after 36 holes of links golf into a Bristol Channel headwind. Booking packages that combine accommodation with golf rounds at Saunton are available and typically represent good value compared to booking both separately. The hotel is family-owned and has the warmth that comes from long-established management rather than corporate hotel hospitality. It books up well in advance through summer, so early planning is essential.

Best Time to Play in Devon

Spring (April–June): Excellent for links golf at Saunton and Westward Ho! — the turf is coming into condition after winter, the days are long enough for comfortable rounds, and the crowds are not yet at summer levels. South Devon clifftop courses are at their most attractive in late spring when the cliff vegetation is in flower. Rain is a genuine possibility through April and May; pack accordingly.

Summer (July–August): Peak season for Devon golf, with the links turf at its firmest and the clifftop settings at their most spectacular. Saunton in particular plays magnificently in summer when the ball runs through the fairways and greens can be approached along the ground. Book accommodation and tee times well in advance for July and August — the county is busy, and the best courses fill up.

Autumn (September–October): The best-kept secret in Devon golf. Crowds thin after the school holidays, the moorland courses are at their finest with autumn colour, and the weather in Devon through September is often excellent. Green fees at several clubs move to autumn rates, and the combination of good golf and a quieter county makes this many experienced Devon visitors’ preferred time of year.

Winter (November–March): The links courses remain playable through most of winter — Saunton’s dune land drains exceptionally well — but North Devon weather in January and February can be genuinely hostile, and some of the smaller clubs operate reduced hours. The moorland courses at Tavistock and Yelverton drain well and often provide better winter playing conditions than parkland alternatives. Always check before travelling in winter months.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Saunton East open to visitors?

Yes. Saunton Golf Club welcomes visitors on both the East and West courses throughout the week, with some restrictions at weekends when member competitions take priority. Handicap certificates are preferred but not always required for the West Course; they are expected for the East. Booking in advance is strongly recommended, particularly in summer. The club is helpful and responsive to enquiries from visiting golfers.

What is the best order to play the Saunton courses?

Most golfers who are playing both courses in a single day start with the West Course in the morning and move to the East Course in the afternoon — the logic being that the West serves as an excellent warm-up, and the East is best played with fresh legs and a sense of occasion. For those playing on consecutive days, the East first gives the best sense of what Saunton is about as a championship venue, with the West providing a pleasing complement the following day.

Can I play Westward Ho! without being a member?

Yes — because the course occupies common land, it operates as a public facility and anyone can play by paying the club’s green fee. The fee is paid to Royal North Devon Golf Club, which manages and maintains the course. Standard booking procedures apply and it is courteous (and practically wise) to book in advance rather than simply turning up, particularly in summer.

How remote is North Devon really?

North Devon is genuinely remote by English standards — the journey from London is around three and a half to four hours by car, and there is no fast rail connection beyond Exeter. This remoteness is precisely what has preserved both the landscape and the golf courses in their current state: the dune systems at Saunton and the common land at Westward Ho! exist as they do partly because North Devon has not been subjected to the development pressure of more accessible areas. The journey is part of the experience. Build in at least two nights and treat the trip as a proper golf expedition rather than an overnight dash.

What is the handicap limit at Saunton East?

The club recommends golfers have a handicap index of 28 or below for the East Course, though this is guidance rather than a strictly enforced rule. The course is challenging for high handicappers, but the club’s ethos is welcoming rather than exclusionary, and the staff will help you make the right choice between the East and West Course if you contact them with your handicap before booking.

Plan Your Devon Golf Trip

Devon rewards commitment. A day trip to Saunton is theoretically possible from London, but you’ll spend most of the day in a car and arrive home at midnight wondering why you didn’t just stay. The courses here deserve at least two nights — preferably three — and the county’s other pleasures (the coast path, the estuary towns, the food) justify the extra time on their own merits.

A strong three-day North Devon itinerary: day one at Royal North Devon / Westward Ho! to experience English golf history on genuinely unusual terrain; day two with 18 holes on Saunton West in the morning and as much of the East as daylight and legs allow in the afternoon; day three at either Saunton East if you couldn’t complete it on day two, or one of the Ilfracombe or Barnstaple courses for a change of pace. Stay at Saunton Sands Hotel for the full experience, or find a self-catering option in Braunton or Croyde for more flexibility.

A South Devon extension adds Thurlestone, Bigbury, and possibly Dartmouth to the programme — enough outstanding golf for a week’s trip that takes in the full range of Devon’s golfing landscape. There are worse ways to spend a late summer week.