Play Competitive Golf in the South West of England

The South West runs one of the most enjoyable amateur open calendars in England, with singles, pairs, mixed and team events held throughout the season at courses that include the oldest links in the country, a James Braid masterpiece tumbling through Cornish dunes, and downland tracks 1,000 feet above sea level on the Mendip Hills. Six counties — Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Gloucestershire, Somerset and Wiltshire — contribute a deep mix of links, cliff-top, downland and parkland venues. The free-draining sand-based courses on both north and south coasts mean opens here run reliably from spring through autumn, often when inland venues elsewhere are still drying out.

The South West contains some of the most historically significant golf in England. Royal North Devon at Westward Ho! has been in continuous play since 1864, making it the oldest course in the country, and the great triumvirate of Vardon, Braid and Taylor — together with Harry Colt and Herbert Fowler — have all left their mark on courses in the region. The terrain shifts dramatically as you travel through it: the rugged dunes of north Cornwall, the cliff-tops of the South Hams, the common land of north Devon shared with sheep and ponies, the downland plateau of the Mendip Hills, and the rolling Wiltshire and Gloucestershire countryside. For amateurs, it adds up to one of the most varied competitive landscapes in Britain — and the South West Coast Path, beaches and food culture make it the natural choice for a long-weekend golf trip.

St Enodoc Golf Club, at Rock on the north Cornish coast opposite Padstow, is widely regarded as one of the finest links in England and a permanent fixture on world top-100 lists. Founded in 1891, the Church Course was refashioned by James Braid from 1907 and continued to evolve under his hand until his final adjustments in 1937 — making it, in effect, Braid’s lifetime project. At just 6,557 yards and par 69 the course is short on paper, but plays anything but: the legendary 6th hole forces a blind second shot over the “Himalayas”, reputedly the largest sand bunker in Europe at over 75 feet high, while the 10th runs past the half-buried 11th-century St Enodoc Church which gives the course its name. Poet Laureate Sir John Betjeman, who loved the course deeply, is buried in the churchyard beside the 10th green. Towering dunes, panoramic views over the Camel Estuary and firm fast-running turf make competing here one of the great experiences in amateur golf.

Royal North Devon Golf Club — universally known as Westward Ho! — opened on 4 April 1864 and is the oldest golf course in England, granted Royal status in 1867 by the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII). The original layout was designed by Old Tom Morris and later revised by Herbert Fowler in 1908, and the course is still played over its original fairways, on Northam Burrows common land beside the Atlantic. It is shared, day in and day out, with around 1,200 sheep and 100 ponies under common-land grazing rights — so genuinely that a local rule allows free relief from manure. The famous Cape Bunker on the 4th, over 100 yards wide and revetted with old railway sleepers, is one of the most photographed hazards in British golf. J.H. Taylor, who later won the Open five times, learned the game here as a caddie. The clubhouse is effectively a working golf museum — hickory clubs, gutta-percha balls, honours boards back to 1864, and three Amateur Championship plaques (1912, 1925 and 1931).

Saunton Golf Club, founded in May 1897 on the magnificent dune system of Braunton Burrows in North Devon — directly opposite Royal North Devon (Westward Ho!) across the Taw-Torridge estuary — offers two championship links courses that together rank among the finest 36 holes in Britain and Ireland. The East Course was redesigned by Herbert Fowler in 1919, the architect of Walton Heath and The Berkshire who many regard as Fowler's finest links work, with later restoration by C.K. Cotton after WWII military occupation and recent revisions by Mackenzie & Ebert in 2013. Henry Longhurst famously called the East "the greatest course never to have hosted the Open," and Harry Vardon, on his first visit, declared he wanted to retire, build a cottage and play golf there for pleasure. The West Course, originally designed by Fowler in 1935 then rebuilt by Frank Pennink in the 1970s after wartime damage, plays through higher dunes nearer the coast and is itself a UK&I Top 100 layout. Saunton has hosted the 1937 English Amateur (won by Frank Pennink), the 1997 Boys Amateur (won by a young Sergio Garcia), and the R&A Women's and Men's Senior Amateur Championships in 2024. The 1929 clubhouse, opened with an exhibition match between J.H. Taylor, James Braid and a young Henry Cotton, is still in use today.

Bowood Park Golf Club at Lanteglos near Camelford sits in 230 acres of north Cornish hills and woodland that once formed part of the 13th-century Royal Deer Park of Edward, the Black Prince. The 6,692-yard par-72 parkland course opened in 1992 and is genuinely characterful — 26 ponds and lakes fed by the River Allen come into play, the 7th at 600 yards is the longest hole in Cornwall, and the celebrated par-4 12th drops into a valley below the ancient Lanteglos church to an almost-island green reached by a covered wooden bridge. Built to USGA specification, the greens hold up year-round with no winter temporaries — a significant advantage for early-season opens. With on-site hotel accommodation, a friendly clubhouse and a course that has appeared in Golf Monthly’s Top 100 Under £50, Bowood Park is one of the most under-rated open-competition venues in the West Country.

Thurlestone Golf Club, founded in 1897 on the South Devon coast above Bigbury Bay, is a cliff-top and downland course with a remarkable architectural lineage: Charles Gibson (then professional at Westward Ho!) laid out the original holes, J.H. Taylor extended it to 18 in 1911, and Harry Colt remodelled it in 1928 to incorporate additional land. The result is 6,179 yards of springy, free-draining turf along the headland with views over Burgh Island, Bantham Creek and the South Hams coast that Peter Alliss compared favourably with Pebble Beach. The course sits within the South Devon AONB and the front twelve in particular play along the cliffs in classic clifftop-links style, with three strong finishing holes back inland. Year-round playability and a strong open programme make Thurlestone one of the South West’s most rewarding hidden gems.

The Mendip Golf Club sits at Gurney Slade, between Bath and Wells, almost 1,000 feet above sea level on the Mendip Hills — making it one of the highest courses in England. Founded as a nine-hole layout in 1908 by a member of the Vardon family, it was extended to a full 18 holes by Frank Pennink in 1965 and further lengthened in 1988 to its current par of 71 and 6,399 yards. The terrain is classic downland: tightly cropped fairways on springy turf, small well-defended greens, and a 3rd hole at the highest point from which seven counties are visible. The elevation brings two things to bear on play — natural drainage that keeps the course open through the wettest spells, and a wind that can transform the scorecard. Opens here are well organised and reasonably priced, and the views alone are worth the entry fee.

The South West’s appeal away from the course is hard to overstate. Cornwall offers the dramatic north-coast scenery around Tintagel and Padstow, the surfing beaches of the Atlantic seaboard, and the gentler harbours of the south. Devon adds Dartmoor and Exmoor national parks, the South Hams villages and the South West Coast Path — the longest National Trail in England. Somerset has Bath, the Mendip Hills AONB, Cheddar Gorge and Wells; Dorset contributes the Jurassic Coast UNESCO World Heritage Site; and Gloucestershire and Wiltshire round things out with the Cotswolds, Stonehenge and Avebury. The regional food culture — Cornish pasties, west-country seafood, Cheddar, cream teas — and an unusually strong network of village pubs and small hotels make multi-day golfing trips easy to organise.

Few regions in England let you finish a round at Westward Ho! at lunchtime, drive an hour to a Jurassic Coast clifftop in the afternoon, and eat fresh-caught seafood in a Devon harbour by evening. For amateurs combining competitive golf with a proper trip, the South West remains hard to beat.