Pay and play and council golf courses in the North West

What pay and play means here

Pay and play is exactly what it sounds like: no membership, no joining fee, you pay for the round you play. Every course in the tables below is owned by a council, run for one, or was a council course before an operator took it on, and none of them asks for a Handicap Index (the official number that shows how good a golfer you are, run by England Golf). That is different from most of the members' clubs in our own course directory, which usually want visitors to book ahead and show a handicap certificate.

Photo to followA golfer teeing off on the first hole at Arrowe Park Golf Course, Wirral, with parkland trees behind

The courses, prices and how to book

Prices are what each operator's own website showed when we checked on 23 September 2026, for one adult on a weekday. Ring ahead: most operators put winter restrictions and short-notice closures on their own booking pages, not here.

Merseyside

Kirkby Valley was once Liverpool Municipal North, and Bowring Park, on land given to the city in 1907, calls itself the oldest municipal course in England. Sherdley Park has been run by Green Circle Leisure since 2018, on a long lease from St Helens Council.

Cheshire and Warrington

The one full-length public course we found is Walton Hall in Higher Walton, Warrington, on council land at Walton Hall and Gardens: £25 on a weekday and £30 at the weekend, with online booking or 01925 263061. The rest of Cheshire's public golf is 9-hole and par 3, on our nine-hole page.

Lancashire, Wigan and Blackpool

Several sell a 9-hole round too: £11 at Southport, £12 at Bootle, £13 at Walton Hall and £17 at Towneley in summer. Twilight tickets, for the last couple of hours of light, are cheaper again: £10 at Bootle, £11.50 at Haigh Hall on a weekday, £13 at Southport and £20 at Kirkby Valley after 4pm.

Pitch and putt and short courses

Short courses need no experience and, at a pitch and putt, no clubs of your own: most lend you a putter and a wedge.

Arrowe Park's family ticket, two adults and two children, is £14.80, and Footgolf, a football-and-golf mix, runs there too. All Arrowe Park prices are from Active Wirral's price list dated 1 April 2026.

Members' clubs that sell a visitor round

These are private members' clubs, not pay and play, but each sells a visitor round on its own website without mentioning a handicap certificate: Widnes £35 on a weekday, Runcorn £45 before 2pm on a weekday (£40 after), Lee Park from £45 and Huyton and Prescot £50. Members' competitions come first, so book ahead.

Closed, or not confirmed

• Brackenwood, Bebington. Closed by Wirral Council in 2022. Local press reported in December 2025 that councillors voted unanimously to hand it to Link Golf Ltd to reopen, with no date given, and we found nothing confirming it has reopened.
• Hoylake Municipal. Closed on 1 April 2022. The R&A and Royal Liverpool Golf Club were working on a plan to take the site on for short-form golf in 2023; not reopened as far as we could find.
• St Michael's, Widnes. Halton's council course, closed since 2004 after arsenic was found in the ground.
• Knights Grange, Winsford. Closed in October 2018 when its operator stopped trading.
• Ingol, Preston. Closed in 2017; the land is now housing.
• Marsden Park, Nelson. Pendle Council's course has been shut since April 2025, with no decision yet on its future.
• Beacon Park, Skelmersdale. Run by West Lancashire Leisure Trust as a pay-and-play course, but its page would not load for us, so we have not given a price.

For juniors and older golfers

Most of these courses charge juniors and over-60s less. Bowring Park asks £6 for a junior round and £18 for over-60s, Kirkby Valley £12 for a junior on a weekday, and Arrowe Park and Warren price juniors at about 60% of the adult rate. Bootle lets juniors play free through a junior membership. Bootle (£12), Southport (£15), Towneley (£17) and Walton Hall (£20) all have a cheaper weekday rate for older golfers.