The North West of England – England’s Golf Coast as the branding goes – have been pushing prices hard over the last 5 years. Royal Birkdale put their price up 24% this year, Royal Liverpool 29% and Royal Lytham 12%. They make up three of the six most expensive green fees in the UK. If you go back to 2020 they were all lower down the list, Hoylake didn’t even make the top 10.
Hosting an Open doesn’t come cheap, and members expect visitors to pay for that. Other courses in the area have significantly increased green fees too. For a long time England’s Golf Coast was seen as better value as a trip to Scotland or Ireland, and while there are cheaper accommodation options here still than somewhere like St Andrews, the green fees are amongst the most expensive anywhere in the world.
TRUMP TURNBERRY – THE £1,000 TEE TIME BECOMES THE SUMMER STANDARD
Last year Trump Turnberry did something seemingly incredible – they announced the £1,000 round of golf. But it came with a couple of asterisks. It was a weekend only rate and applied if you weren’t staying at the hotel.
Well for 2026 they have got rid of one of those asterisks. This rate will apply every day of the week, at all times, between May and September. It’s breathtaking.
They are clearly trying to drive people to stay onsite as the green fee comes down if you stay at the hotel. But it’s one of the most expensive hotels in Scotland to visit, and when you get there everything else is a premium offering too – the restaurants, the bars, the spa. So basically a round of golf at Turnberry in the summer is way beyond the reach of the average British golfer.
However, if you are happy to go out of season then you can play for just 17% of the summer green fee! It’s £175 for a weekday round from the middle of November when mats are in play. If you’d rather go without a mat then it’s £315 for a weekday round and £360 at the weekend from October 1st. At a time where many other courses are closing down to visitors in the winter (more to come on that) at least Turnberry is offering a way in without paying the full summer rate.
HIGHER PRICES, FEWER TEE TIMES
The increase in green fee rates has been staggering in recent years and as a result some clubs have decided to reduce the number of tee times available for visitors. That’s because they have increased green fees so far that they can now afford to reduce visitor times while still keeping the coffers full. Another strategy is that some make more tee times available on weekdays but fewer on other more desirable days.
North Berwick is a good example of this. The green fee was £160 in 2020. You could book a tee time any day of the week. Fast forward 6 years and it’s £320 for a round and you can’t play on Friday and Saturdays. North Berwick have joined the big time both in their rankings and in their approach to visitor play.
And if you’re looking for a good discount on winter golf then you can often forget it. Most of the top clubs in the UK have totally stopped winter play for visitors now. A few years ago you could get a cracking rate and a bacon roll. Now many courses just don’t want to share their course in the winter when they are coining it in all summer. Altruism and naked capitalism don’t seem to be common bedfellows in British golf.
NEW COURSES – PUNCHY PRICING
There are two newcomers on the Scottish golf scene – Old Petty at Cabot Highlands and the New course at Trump International.
There was a time when a new course would price reasonably to get some word of mouth going, to encourage people to come and have a look. Well those days are gone! Both courses are pricing the new courses at the same rate as the established, and well regarded, predecessors.
And the actual price is incredible. To play the New Course at Trump you will pay £560 to play there. The course was ranked 31st in Scotland by Today’s Golfer.
Old Petty is £385 this year to play – Golf World ranked it at 34th in Scotland. I suspect it will climb the ranking over the next few years, but pricing it the same as the World Top 100 Castle Stuart seems odd to me.
The owners, Cabot, have been hugely successful in developing resorts in North America and I’m sure they will have sophisticated models for how they price. But for me, like Trump New, Old Petty is a course that will probably sit along the likes or Elie (£180) and Panmure (£195) in the rankings (that is high praise!) and I wish it was priced a bit closer to them.
THE 20% CLUB
There are 11 clubs which have increased prices by 20% or more this year. By way of reference Inflation has run at around 3% over the last year and the average wage has gone up 3.8%.
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Trump Turnberry: £1,000 +67%
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Royal North Devon: £140 +40%
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Royal Ashdown Forest: £205 +37%
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Royal Liverpool: £450 +29%
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Moortown: £250 +25%
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Delamere Forest: £175 +25%
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Royal Birkdale: £495 +24%
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Prestwick: £380 +23%
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Dunbar: £225 +22%
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Hankley Common: £235 +21%
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Fraserburgh: £150 +20%
Royal North Devon has reintroduced weekend play which is the reason for their large increase. Others are harder to fathom. However, a committee member at an English course gave me an interesting insight when he told me, ‘We can’t believe we get away with it every year to be honest but it’s great for the members as it keeps their subs down’.
Let’s hope for their sake the Golden Goose keeps laying the eggs. We are living in a world where seismic shocks are not out of the question these days, getting member subs increases so out of kilter with green fee increases could be a dangerous place to be.
THE AMERICAN PRICING MYTH
‘My mate was talking to a guy in the pub who’s on the committee at . They said the Americans won’t come unless they charge at least £250 a tee time – they just won’t think it’s any good if it’s cheaper.
Every year this trope comes out. There may even be some committee members who think it’s true.
But it’s not. You see the vast majority of American golfers coming over are doing so as part of a tour package put together by a Golf Tour Operator (and for full disclosure – I am one of those). Clients never see an individual green fee price so this just isn’t a factor. And believe me, Tour Operators aren’t including courses just because they are expensive. There is often a ceiling to what most clients will pay for a trip so we are looking to keep prices down.
Some of these secondary courses have put through incredible prices in recent years as they follow this warped logic. I have seen a couple of Scottish courses not even on this list putting through 50% increases for 2027 already. Hopefully they haven’t been listening to the guy in the pub when they are setting their pricing strategy. What a shame that perfectly nice courses in reach of the average golfer risk are now becoming unattainable.
SOME PLACES ARE GETTING IT RIGHT
It’s very easy to make this into a rant about the places who are acting egregiously, so I want to call out some of the courses who seem to be happy in their own skin. They don’t feel the need to chase higher green fees just because they can, and they have a model which seems to work for both the club and visitors.
Go to Holinwell!! They have done something rather unusual and they have reduced like for like green fees. Last year it was £220 and this year they have brought it back down to £175, the same level as it was in 2023.
When I talked to them about this move they were candid – they want to appeal to the domestic market and be in the reach of the normal golfer. Here is a club that seems to get it, they’re not just trying to sweat the last penny out of every visitor.
The strategy seems to be working well – they are on track to eclipse their 2025 green fee income due to more tee times being sold, and spend should be up in the pro shop and bar/restaurants too. It’s always been a wonderful place to play golf and this approach is so great to see.
I want to call out Muirfield again as another example of a club that gets it. They have actually expanded the number of visitor tee times on their allocated days – Tuesdays and Thursdays. And for those of you who haven’t visited a while, you will be amazed at the change in the approach the club take to visitors. The welcome is now one of the very best in the country.
Muirfield could put their green fee up a lot more – at £395 for 18 holes it’s pretty much the same as a round at Old Petty – but they don’t. They also let visitors play throughout the winter for £150 and the course is always amazingly presented – no winter tees or greens here.
They just seem to understand their place in the game and that they don’t have to rinse every last penny out of the visiting golfer. If only there were more like that!
THE DEMAND FROM DOMESTIC GOLFERS IS INCREDIBLE
Royal Birkdale announced ‘The Birkdale Ballot’ this year. They made 10 tee times available for £396 per fourball, or £99 per player. It was open to UK based golfers with an official handicap. They received 26,800 applications for these 40 places – you have around a 1 in 700 chance of being successful! It just shows how much demand there is from British golfers to play our great golfers.
ST ANDREWS – LEADING THE WAY
The Links Trust, the organisation who manage the 8 courses in St Andrews, run an increasingly meaningful initiative, The Drive. Scottish residents can apply for heavily discounted tee times across a range of Links Trust courses, including The Old Course. Outgoing Chief Executive, Neil Coulson, said about the initiative ‘Our vision for The Drive is not only to provide a bucket-list experience to thousands of people across Scotland, but to widen access to golf and encourage people of all ages, backgrounds and experiences to play’,
When they debuted it in 2025 it was well received , though there was a little cynicism about the number of tee times on offer. But the good news is it appears they were just testing the water last year. The 2026 initiative takes it to another level.
The Links Trust have tripled the number of places this year – there are 496 tee times available in total (for 1,984 players) including 56 (224 people) on the Old Course.