Where you can play in the North West without a handicap certificate

What Golf Metric checked

Every course in Golf Metric's North West directory has its own visitor or green fees page (or, for a handful, only a home page could be reached). Golf Metric read each one on 23 Sep 2026 looking for any mention of a handicap certificate or handicap requirement for visitors. The short version: almost none of them say anything about it either way.

The two that do mention a handicap

• Royal Liverpool, Hoylake: its own page says "all visitors are expected to be competent golfers who hold a current Club or Society handicap." That's a requirement to hold a handicap of some kind, not a number you need to beat.
• Royal Lytham and St Annes, Lytham St Annes: advises "handicaps are no higher than 21 for Men, and 30 for Ladies" to get full enjoyment out of the course, and recommends playing its more forgiving tees. The club presents this as advice, not a booking condition.

Neither Royal Birkdale, the third Open venue in Golf Metric's directory, publishes any handicap requirement at all.

Where handicaps genuinely don't come into it

Two courses state plainly, in their own words, that anyone can book:

• Bootle, run by Sefton Council, describes itself as "open for pay & play 7 days a week", with tee times booked by phone or online rather than through a club.

Photo to followThe clubhouse at Bootle Golf Club, a council-run, pay-and-play course in Merseyside

• Carden Park, Chester, books its two courses online "for both members and non-members" alike, with no handicap step in that process.

Golf Metric's own directory also lists three more courses as Municipal or Resort rather than a traditional members' club (Haigh Hall in Wigan, Portal in Tarporley and Shaw Hill in Chorley), which generally means the same open-to-all model, though Golf Metric could not find an equally explicit sentence on their own sites to quote directly.

Everywhere else: simply not stated

The other 26 courses in the directory, from links courses like Formby and Fairhaven to parkland clubs like Wilmslow and Lancaster, don't mention a handicap certificate anywhere Golf Metric could find on their own sites. That's not the same as a guarantee: a club can still ask over the phone or by email when you book, particularly at a longer-established members' club, so it's worth asking if you're new to the game and unsure.

For juniors and older golfers

A handicap certificate isn't the only thing worth checking before a first visit to a course you don't know. Junior policies, minimum ages and whether a parent has to play alongside a younger junior vary just as much club to club, and none of that was checked here; ring ahead if you're booking for a junior or a first-timer of any age.