Alnmouth Golf Club

Few English golf clubs carry a founding date as far back as 1869, but Alnmouth Golf Club does — making it one of the oldest in the country and, by some accounts, the oldest in England. The course occupies a headland between the River Aln and the North Sea, a stretch of Northumberland coastline that is as dramatic and windswept as any links ground in Britain. The turf is firm and fast, the rough unforgiving, and the sea breeze rarely offers a neutral opinion on club selection.

The setting does much of the design work. Northumberland's coastline here is sparsely developed and genuinely wild, with views across the dunes to Alnmouth Bay and, on clear days, toward the Farne Islands. The village of Alnmouth itself is a quiet, characterful place — a former grain port that retains its Georgian bones — and the golf club is woven into the community in the way only very old clubs can be.

This is links golf without the crowds or the green fees of more famous venues, which gives it an authenticity that packaged destinations rarely match.