In honour of the Royal Wedding, LINKS MAGAZINE has published their list of the Top 10 Royal courses in the world. They missed Royal Colwood in Victoria but otherwise did OK. I enjoy the site because of George Peper’s writing. George is a member of St Andrews Golf Club and played with our Thursday Club group. I managed a couple rounds with him and will remember making birdie on 18 to tie our match one Thursday, to me a tie is better than losing and almost as good as a win.
The LINKS listing:
1. Royal Portrush, Ulster. In my ever changing list, Protrush is 5
2. Royal County Down, also Ulster or Northern Ireland. Worth spending your RSP to get there, number 1 on my list.
3. Royal Birkdale, the golf coast of England, north of Liverpool. Great history, number 8 on my list.
4. Royal Porthcawl, south Wales. We stayed in a Pub in the village of Nottage and loved it! Number 7 on my listing.
5. Royal Melbourne, Australia. Never been there, but hear it is great. Their PM has great courage, hope it catches on with our polititians here. Not on my list.
6. Royal Dornoch, northern Scotland. A very special place, can`t wait to get back. Number 2 on my list.
7. Royal Lytham, near Liverpool. My first links experience (although you can`t see the sea, you know it`s there). We played it the week before the OPEN and it is brilliant. 6 on my list.
8. Royal St George`s, south England, The OPEN site this year. Somehow I`ve missed playing in that area, hard to get south of Sunningdale. 9 on my list due to history.
9. Royal Liverpool, also in that great golfing area around Liverpool. Also known as “«Hoylake“, really a good course, nice membership (actually all the UK courses have engaging memberships). Played it on Good Friday about 10 years ago. 4th on my Royal list.
10. Royal Aberdeen, Scotland. One of the greatest surprises we had was playing Royal Aberdeen. Very close in warmness to Royal County Down and Dornoch. Play it if you can, because it is that good. Number 3 on my list.
