Ben Wright: Burning Desire

When the Walker Cup Match takes place at Royal County Down on September 8–9, Great Britain and Ireland will try to win the biennial competition for the fourth time in the last five attempts, which is truly unimaginable, given that our record for so long was one of utter futility, save for one glorious moment […]

George Peper: 750 Courses and Counting

About a month ago, I played for the first time a fine links course on England’s Somerset Coast called Burnham & Berrow. Now, normally this would be an occasion of no particular significance—certainly not worth trumpeting in the first line of a LINKS column—but in this instance it meant something. You see, B&B happened to […]

Great Courses of Britain & Ireland: St. Enodoc

Occupying the extreme westerly tip of the British Isles, with mood and scenery unlike that found in any other part of England, the county of Cornwall is more Celtic than Anglo-Saxon and, as any Cornishman will quickly tell you, it’s the region of Britain with the likeliest claim to being thehome of legendary King Arthur […]

Top 10: Wales

  Often overlooked by its more golf-famous British Isles brethren, the tiny nation of Wales quietly boasts a number of phenomenal courses. It’s had its fair share of championships—The Ryder Cup, Walker Cup, Curtis Cup, and British Senior Open have all been staged on Welsh turf. Wales’s rugged coastline also provides for some of the […]

The Essential: Hugh Alison

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Charles Hugh Alison, who was known to the world by his middle name, was born in 1883 in the small English city of Preston, about 30 miles north of Manchester. A powerfully built and athletic young man, he played first-class cricket and earned his “Blue” competing for Oxford against Cambridge in the University Golf Match. […]

Follow LINKS Contributor Nick Edmund on his "Golf-Walk"

By Tony Dear   Nick Edmund should be resting. On March 4th of this year, carrying a set of golf clubs on his back, the 56-year-old Englishman set out along Ireland’s Wild Atlantic Way—a 1,500-mile tourism trail taking in the country’s western coast—before stopping on May 1st in Galway, the halfway point. During the first […]

Top 10 English Golfers Of All Time

England has produced 19 male professional major championship winners, who, among them, have captured 35 major victories, third behind the U.S. and Scotland. Four English women have claimed official women’s majors, and the country also has had an impressive list of accomplished amateurs. Considering that the country’s golf history could date back as far as […]

These Golf Course Names are Less Than Inspiring

A pair of first-time major-championship hosts will soon step forward, with the U.S. Open coming to Erin Hills, in Erin, Wis., and the PGA to Quail Hollow in Charlotte, N.C. Granted, each has been the site of some previous high-level competition—Erin Hills having hosted the U.S. Amateur, Quail Hollow a slew of PGA Tour events—but this […]

From St. Anne’s to Royal Liverpool: England’s Golf Coast

It’s a bit fresh today,” a member said cheerfully, referring to the wind. (My transcription of his remark is based partly on lip-reading: the gale made hearing unreliable.) The course we were playing—St. Annes Old Links, on the Lancashire coast in northwestern England—has a few small water hazards, of which the largest is smaller than […]