Royal Lytham & Saint Annes Golf Club

About the club

This course may not boast seaside vistas, but it delivers top quality golf. Its origins as farmland are evident in the even, furrowed fairway. More than two hundred bunkers, deep if not large, make a dropped shot an ever-present danger at driving distance, and are evidence of Harry Colt's influence. A low score on the first nine holes (par 35) is necessary if one is to have a satisfying total coming back (par 36) in the face of the wind, though choices in regard to distance are limited. A drive and iron are usually enough for the two par 5s on the front nine; the one par 3 on the back, to a small, raised green, is the longest. The wind makes the final five holes the most difficult finishing stretch in championship golf, the seventeenth being famous for the shot that won Bobby Jones the Open in 1926.