Royal Lytham & St Annes Golf Club
Lytham St Annes, Lancashire · Designed by George Lowe (1886); later Herbert Fowler, Harry Colt & C.K. Cotton · Est. 1886
Why this Edge Score: An Open venue that famously opens with a par 3 and defends itself with over 200 bunkers rather than sea views. Lancashire's toughest test of accuracy, it has crowned champions from Bobby Jones to Ernie Els and ranks among our top English links.
Royal Lytham & St Annes is one of the great championship links, and one of the most unusual: it has no sea view at all. Founded in 1886, with the present course laid out by George Lowe in 1897 and later refined by Fowler, Colt and Cotton, it is hemmed in by the red-brick suburbs of Lytham St Annes and a railway line — yet plays every inch a true links, firm and fast, and defended by 167 bunkers.
It is a stern, strategic test of 7,118 yards, par 71, that famously opens with a par 3 — one of the very few Open venues to do so — and finishes through a gauntlet of sand and out-of-bounds. King George V granted the royal title shortly before the club hosted its first Open in 1926.
That 1926 Open gave the course its most storied moment: Bobby Jones’s recovery from sandy scrub at the 17th, struck to the green to seal the Claret Jug, is marked by a plaque to this day. Eleven Opens have followed — Tony Jacklin, Gary Player, Seve Ballesteros (whose “car park” birdie won in 1979, with a second title in 1988), Tom Lehman, David Duval and, most recently, Ernie Els in 2012 — along with two Ryder Cups. The Open returns for a twelfth time in 2028. On-site Dormy House rooms make a stay-and-play easy.
Holes worth knowing
- 117th — a plaque marks where Bobby Jones, in the 1926 Open, struck a magnificent recovery from sandy scrub to the green to win the Claret Jug; a hole that has decided championships ever since.
- 21st (par-3) — Lytham is one of the very few Open courses to begin with a short hole, a subtle, bunkered opener that sets the tone for a relentless test.
Highlights
- Eleven-time Open host; the Open returns in 2028
- Opens with a par 3; 167 bunkers
- Bobby Jones's 1926 recovery, marked by a plaque
- On-site Dormy House for stay-and-play
Good to know
- →Uniquely among the Open links you never see the sea — Lytham is hemmed by the town and the railway, yet plays firm and fast as any true links.
- →It is all about the bunkers — 167 of them — and driving position: take the line that keeps you out of the sand, and remember the round opens with a par 3.
- →The on-site Dormy House makes a stay-and-play straightforward; the genteel town of Lytham has a landmark windmill on the green, good restaurants and a Sunday market.
- →Blackpool and the Fylde coast are minutes away for a complete change of pace — the Tower, the Pleasure Beach, the autumn illuminations and the tram along the front.
- →The club is closed to visitors from November to February; in season, book well ahead and bring a handicap certificate (men 21, ladies 30).
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