Golf courses in Merseyside

What the golf is like

Merseyside's golf is really two different games. Along the coast, from Formby down to Hoylake, it's links golf: courses built on sand dunes by the sea, firm underfoot and exposed to wind off the Irish Sea. This stretch, promoted by the tourism site England's Golf Coast, takes in Royal Birkdale and Royal Liverpool, both past Open Championship venues, plus Formby, Hillside and Southport and Ainsdale, all ranked in the NCG Top 100s for England.

Away from the coast, Liverpool and St Helens have a plainer game: parkland courses through trees and open grass, and one municipal course, calmer and usually cheaper to play than the championship links. We list 11 courses in Merseyside in total; every one is in the table above, with a link through to what we know about it.

Wind is the constant on the coast. There's little to stop it once it comes off the Irish Sea, so a calm forecast morning can turn blustery by the afternoon, and a two-club wind off the water is a normal part of the day rather than the exception. Inland, most of the parkland courses around Liverpool and St Helens sit in more shelter, with trees breaking up the wind. Heswall, on the Wirral, bucks that pattern: a parkland course by kind, but close enough to the Dee estuary that our data marks it exposed too.

Photo to followDune ground and marram grass typical of the Sefton coast links, between Formby and Ainsdale

Getting there

The M62 brings traffic in from Manchester and the east, ending close to Liverpool city centre. The M57 rings the north and east of the city, feeding the M58 towards Skelmersdale and, from it, the A565 coast road that runs through Formby and Ainsdale up to Southport. The Wirral is served by the M53, which runs the length of the peninsula from Birkenhead down to the M56 for Chester.

By train, Merseyrail's Northern line (Southport branch) stops at Formby, Freshfield, Ainsdale and Hillside, all close to a coast course; Hall Road, further south, is close to West Lancashire in Blundellsands. On the Wirral, the West Kirby branch stops at Manor Road, Meols and Hoylake, near Royal Liverpool. Trains from Liverpool city centre run roughly every 15 to 30 minutes through the day on both lines.

Liverpool John Lennon Airport is the nearest airport to the whole county: about 14 miles, straight-line, from Royal Liverpool at Hoylake, and 18 to 21 miles from the Southport end of the coast. Manchester Airport, a bigger international hub, is roughly 33 to 38 miles from most of Merseyside's courses.

When to go

The coast courses, being links, tend to stay playable through a wet winter better than clay-based parkland inland, since sandy ground drains faster; even so, no course is immune to a genuinely heavy, sustained spell of rain. Most of the private clubs on our list take visitors most readily from spring to autumn, and several close their visitor booking over the winter months. Daylight is the other limit in autumn and winter: see our guide to the last tee time before dark for how much that cuts into an evening round.

For beginners

If you're new to the game, an exposed links course in a stiff coastal wind is a harder start than most people expect. Our directory marks Formby, Royal Birkdale, Hillside, Southport and Ainsdale, West Lancashire, Royal Liverpool and, on the Wirral, Heswall as exposed; the other parkland courses and the municipal course at Bootle are a calmer place to learn.

A few of the courses

Photo to followThe clubhouse and closing holes at Royal Birkdale, an Open Championship links course in Southport

Royal Birkdale, in Southport, has hosted The Open 11 times, most recently the 154th in July 2026, and sits third in the NCG Top 100s for England. Just up the coast in Hoylake, Royal Liverpool has hosted The Open several times too, most recently the 151st in 2023, and holds 11th place in the same list. Formby, just inland of the dunes, is the local yardstick for length: a par of 72 over 6,815 yards from its white tees, and 12th nationally in the same rankings.

Inland, Grange Park in St Helens and Allerton Manor in Liverpool are both parkland courses; Allerton Manor also has a 9-hole course alongside its main 18. Bootle is the county's municipal option in our directory, council-run with no membership required, and Heswall and Lee Park round out the parkland options on the Wirral and in south Liverpool.