Lancashire - Royal Lytham & St Annes Golf Club
Follow in the footsteps of golfing legends at this course
Royal Lytham & St Annes Golf Club is one of the premier links courses in the world, host to 11 Open Championships, two Ryder Cups and numerous other major tournaments including The Women’s Open, The Senior Open, The Amateur Championship and The Walker Cup.
Renowned as one of the best designed links courses in the world, with 174 strategically positioned pot bunkers peppering the fairways and surrounding the greens, just lying in wait for misjudged shots.
Sometimes criticised for its position within a suburban area of red brick houses, we feel this fails to take into account the joyful challenge of playing the course. Spectacular scenery is always a bonus, but if tackling the course itself is this joyfully challenging then perfect views aren't essential. When the wind blows, there's arguably no more exacting course in Britain. Its bunkers alone make the ones at 95 per cent of this country’s courses appear feeble by comparison.
The course has a charm of its own, flanked by a railway line and is close enough to the sea for the invigorating sea breezes to occasionally impact your game. The course was aptly described by Bernard Darwin, the leading golf writer of the thirties, as "a beast of a course, but a just beast... no one could fail to be impressed by its difficulties, which sets a golfer just about as ruthless as an examination as any course of my acquaintance".
