The 10 best golf courses in Merseyside

Liverpool is world famous for its football teams, music, waterfront, culture and identity and it can also boast some of the very greatest golf courses on the planet.

The North West is one of the golf-rich regions anywhere with two Open layouts and five others part of the best 100 courses in Great Britain and Ireland. Liverpool and its environs is all about links golf with a coastline from the Wirral to Southport that welcomes hundreds of thousands of visitors every year.

To clarify we’ve selected 10 courses that are in Merseyside and within 25 miles of Liverpool. 

The best golf courses in Merseyside

Royal Birkdale

Location: Southport

Green fees: £495

Years ago we spoke to six tour pros on the senior tour and asked for their favourite Open course and they weren’t allowed to say St Andrews. All of them said Birkdale, without any hesitation. Much of their reasoning is the fairness of the links, the way that you can see where you’re playing and it’s tough but extremely fair.

This will be the 11th Open here, the first as recently as 1954, and there are a host of brilliant winners on the honours’ board. This year we’ll get to witness a new hole and several tweaks but the nuts and bolts of Birkdale will remain as familiar as ever.

The 1st hole might be the hardest opener on the rota, the 18th which heads back to the art deco clubhouse similarly tough to register a four.

If we had to pick a favourite hole? We’ll go for 12 and 13 which might well be the best back-to-back tests on the rota. Then the closing stretch will throw up chances to transform your scorecard - see Jordan Spieth, 2017.      

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Formby

Location: Formby, Liverpool

Green fees: £285

There is the temptation to simply start off with the Open courses and then add in the others. But we’d have Formby just ahead of Royal Liverpool which is no criticism of Hoylake, more that Formby is particularly brilliant. If we had 10 rounds we’d go six at Formby and four at Royal Liverpool.

Right from the off Formby is special, with the turf and bunkering particularly excellent, and the holes in the pines at 7 and 8 make for something different. Then we have the 9th, a magnificent two-shotter heading back to the coast which you sadly never get near, which would be the pick of the holes.

There is an argument to suggest that of all the courses on Merseyside you might well pick Formby as the one where you’d pick first to be a member. If you’re splitting hairs the 18th isn’t the strongest finishing hole but that’s being very picky.  

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Royal Liverpool

Location: Hoylake, Wirral

Green fees: £400

Royal Liverpool has hosted 13 Opens which speaks for itself. Even more impressive is that it has staged 19 Amateur Championships, more than any other course in the UK.

Hoylake, as it is commonly known, starts with a par 4 which plays as the 3rd hole in the Open which is a crying shame given there is out of bounds, via the practice ground, lurking down the right. It won't score as well as other Open courses on the rankings but there is more than enough to love about the place.

The par-3 11th by the estuary is spectacularly good while the short 15th, Little Eye, has divided opinion but still makes for a fun challenge if you're not playing in a Medal. Tiger Woods lit up the place with his dismantling of the links without using pretty much any woods and he famously holed a 4-iron at the 12th (Open 14th) en route to his 18-under total.

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Hillside 

Location: Southport

Green fees: £300

Hillside sits adjacent to Royal Birkdale and Southport & Ainsdale but it has its own charm. The club will rightly dine out on Greg Norman's description of the back nine as the best in Britain but there is so much more to Hillside.

The opening hole certainly gets your attention, with the railway line just a quick hook away from a reload, and Mackenzie & Ebert have made sweeping changes to the front nine. In truth the course from start to finish is an exceptional test but the short 10th and then sweeping and brilliant 11th are the pick of the holes, as well as the 18th.

The closing hole has to be considered as one of the very best closing holes in the UK. Expect variety, fantastic turf, sand scrapes, dramatic duneland and a course very worthy of more tournament golf.

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West Lancashire

Location: Blundellsands, Liverpool

Green fees: £250

Now a venue for Final Qualifying which has elevated it to where it should be which is a must play for any links aficionados.

The 3rd is a quite brilliant short hole, all the par 3s here are truly outstanding, and holes 3-6 are all different and straight out the top drawer. Our personal preference would be the front nine but there are some great holes on the back side.

Many point to the 13th, played from an elevated tee, but we’d take the hole preceding that and the one afterwards as two of the better holes on the property. We also have the welcome thrill of a lengthy par 5 that runs alongside the railway at the 11th.

An all-round brilliant layout which makes for an excellent winer links day out – if only to enjoy the course without too much rough!  

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Southport & Ainsdale

Location: Ainsdale, Southport

Green fees: £270

In an incredible stretch of coastline we have Royal Birkdale, Hillside and Southport & Ainsdale all in a row, three Top 100 links that have played a huge role in the game.

Only four courses have hosted the Ryder Cup on multiple occasions and S&A is one of the quartet having staged the 1933 and 37 matches.

In 1922, a new road bisected the course and James Braid was brought in to solve the layout, building six new holes and improving the other 12. That was just over a century ago and it remains a brilliant if still slightly undervalued links.

It begins with a superb short hole, the par-5 2nd is similarly special and there are a host of outstanding par 4s but the par-5 16th, Gumbleys, which features a sleeper bunker and runs alongside the Mersey Rail gets a lot of the headlines.

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Wallasey

Location: Wallasey, Wirral

Green fees: £235

This was always known as the Home of Stableford, now it is more regarded as a world-class links. The course has links with Old Tom Morris, Fred Hawtree, JH Taylor, James Braid and Donald Steel and in recent times there have been some huge improvements under the course manager John McLoughlin.

Wallasey is now a fixture in the GB&I Top 100 and there are some truly exceptional holes, notably 2, 4, 12, 16 and 18, which exemplify a variety of holes that are a feature of the course. The closing hole is a beauty and one of the best in the land, sitting in front of the clubhouse with a green site that is the biggest on the course at 800 square metres in size. At 50 yards long it's packed with brilliant pin locations.

A great place to play golf, with Royal Liverpool nearby, which makes the Wirral a fantastic spot to visit.

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Formby Ladies

Location: Formby, Liverpool

Green fees: £165

Formby Ladies that began life as a nine-holer before Harry Colt made his alterations after it had been extended to 18 holes. The course sits inside Formby and you can expect tight fairways, links turf, pine trees and well-protected greens over a layout that measures 5,356 yards from the red tees.

If you want the dictionary definition of a course that you've mentally overcome by only looking at the scorecard, there are seven par 4s of under 330 yards, then this is it. The reality is that you will need to be precise and be thinking clearly.

There are four short holes, the longest measures 158 yards, and you will no doubt take on some of the shorter 4s but the greens are small so your short game will also need to be on song.

Don't be fooled by the name or this being any sort of inferior offering in terms of condition – this is a bona fide Top 100 course in England that will continue to grow in popularity.

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Hesketh

Location: Southport

Green fees: £175

Southport’s oldest golf club but still unknown to many. George Lowe was the professional, club maker and custodian of the links at Lytham when he had a hand in the design of Hesketh – he would also lay out Royal Birkdale, Southport & Ainsdale, St Anne’s Old Links and Seascale – and parts of it are as good as anywhere.

There are different parts to the course, some of it being routed along the Ribble Estuary while others are played through the dunes and these are, for our money, some truly exquisite holes. Sir Henry Cotton described the par-3 16th as the best short hole in Lancashire, which is some statement given what surrounds it, and the round finishes with a pair of par 5s to give you the chance of a late birdie or two – the last is the better of the two holes.

But the 14th deserves special mention – this begins a brilliant linksy run for home and features a fabulous approach to a brilliant green that sits in front of the stunning clubhouse.

Uniquely Hesketh is also home to the ‘Hitler Trophy’ from the 1936 Berlin Olympics, which was won by Hesketh’s own Arnold Bentley and bought by the club in an auction in 2012.

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Caldy

Location: Birkenhead, Wirral

Green fees: £130

If you've not played Caldy, you'll be amazed that such a fun course exists so close to its world-class neighbours on the Wirral. This is really good fun golf and is slowly appearing on more golfers' radars in recent times – Rick Shiels has twice gone through Regional Qualifying at Caldy in the past couple of years.

Old Tom Morris' nephew, Jack, introduced the first nine holes and James Braid added in the rest 25 years later in 1931. It offers a mix of holes and the really stunning run of holes begins with the 3rd which takes you down to the River Dee and the next three holes are very impressive. The inland holes are no less as strong, with some exceptional turf, and variety of challenges.

Caldy doesn't make it into the next 100 courses in England's Top 100 which seems quite harsh given the quality of the holes and setting here.

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