Stand on the 11th tee at Hillside and you'll understand immediately. The ground drops roughly 100 feet in front of you. A dogleg bends around a dune ridge below. The green sits raised behind a cavernous bunker. And if you look left — across the boundary — you'll see the white grandstands of the Open Championship course next door.
Jack Nicklaus described "some of my favourite holes" after walking Hillside's back nine with Fred Hawtree, who redesigned the course in the 1960s. Greg Norman wrote to the club calling it the best back nine in Britain. What Hawtree built on Hillside's elevated terrain became quiet legend among those who've played it: each hole tucked into its own dune valley, enclosed, removed from the noise of the town.
The front nine runs relatively flat beside the railway line — solid, well-bunkered, with the rebuilt 4th par-3 now one of the most memorable short holes in the north. But the transformation happens at the turn. The back nine climbs. Views from the 14th tee extend to Snowdonia, the Lake District, and Blackpool Tower on a clear day. The terrain compares — not idly — to Ballybunion in County Kerry. Scots pines frame many fairways, giving the course an unusual character: wild dune terrain softened by woodland, austere and beautiful together.
The club dates from 1911. Martin Ebert of Mackenzie & Ebert completed a renovation in 2019–2021 that gave the front nine a character that finally matches the back. The course now measures 7,100 yards from the championship tees, slope 137–140.
Golf Monthly ranks it 30th in Britain and Ireland. Top 100 Golf Courses calls it "an underrated gem, separated from Royal Birkdale only by a footpath." That footpath matters. The two clubs share a boundary. Hillside station — the same stop used by Open spectators — is a five-minute walk from both entrances.
Hillside has never hosted The Open. It has hosted The Amateur Championship three times (1979, 2011, 2023), the PGA Championship, and two recent DP World Tour events. It remains the finest British links course not to have hosted The Open — which makes a round here, during Open week, feel like a deliberate act of discovery.
Visitors are welcome on weekdays and Sunday afternoons. Book ahead — this is a private members' club and July tee times go quickly. Contact the Secretary's Office by phone (01704 567169) or email ([email protected]). A handicap certificate is required. Summer 2026 green fees: £300 midweek, £335 weekends. Electric trolley £20; buggy £35.
Why it's special
