Is it too expensive to play golf?

Craig Middleton: So we all watched Tyrrell Hatton win his maiden title last week at the Dunhill, playing some brilliant golf at arguably some of the best courses in the world.

The great thing about golf is that you can, most of the time, play anywhere in the world where all the best players are week in week out. But it comes at a price…

A quick google search reveals that to play a round of golf at the Old Course in the high season will set you back £175. A lot of money absolutely, but it is the home of golf..

Is £175 too much for a round of golf, or would you pay top dollar for the top courses?

Tom Lenton: I would pay £175 for a summer round on the Old course in a heartbeat. Finding 3 friends to join me and do the same would be the hard part

James Savage: I think £175 is far too much. On a course that you can pretty much walk for nothing. Augusta is the only place I’d pay lots of money to play.

Golf courses with really high green fees just reinforce the notion that golf is an elitist sport for the privileged only. I think £50 is about the most I’d really want to pay.

Jamie Millar: Would completely depend on the course.

There is only a few that I would pay that for – all in Scotland. I’d be more conscious of having a terrible round of golf though after splashing the cash, and where my golfing talent is I wouldn’t need that added pressure of paying that amount of money.

Tom Irwin: It is absolutely worth it, at some venues Going to genuinely world class Open venues, particularly The Old Course are for most once in a lifetime experience. Think of the stories, pictures and memories you come back with.

Taking the Old Course as an example; you walk on turf that every single great player (save Ben Hogan) has stood on, you get to stand on the Swilken Bridge, drive over the O of Old, learn words like Elysian and have a shy at the last green You can’t put a price on that.

You will have almost 5 hours of that electric feeling you get when you know you are doing something special that will never be repeated at a rate of 58p per minute. It is the golfers equivalent of a wedding day, and they are really expensive.

Save up, give up smoking, deny your children christmas presents, put a pound in a tin every week and go in 4 years – you won’t regret it.

Craig Middleton: I agree with you there Tom, for any avid golf fans getting to play the Old Course for me is something you just have to do. The history of the place makes price an irrelevance for me.

Tom Irwin: The only caveat I have is when you go to ‘top class’ venues where they try and take more money from you, £10 for a yardage book, £10 for a bag tag. That is bad. The best places give you things as part of the price and leave you a warm feeling of getting something for nothing. Oh and bad greens, you can’t charge top dollar and then ask people to putt on sub standard surfaces, golfers really don’t like that do they.

Where pricing is a problem is at venues with a higher opinion of themselves than is warranted, holding Open qualifying in 1986, or being based near an actual Open venue does not mean you can command a three figure green fee. That type of pricing is a opportunistic and ultimately unsustainable.

Dan Murphy: Playing somewhere like the Old Course is worth any amount of money because it is something you will never forget.

That said, when you break it down to a rate per hole, £10 is a lot to pay to slap your ball into a gorse bush.

Personally, I’d rather save up and pay twice as much to play somewhere truly amazing than spend £80 or £90 on a forgettable experience.

The bigger issue here is how much we are all being asked to pay our local course. If it’s not affordable then golf becomes inaccessible.

Georgina Simpson: Hard to comment because I haven’t paid to play golf in a long time.  I think I may die of shock if someone asked me to part with just short of £200 to play one round of golf…  I much rather have a great pair of shoes! Or a 4 day Ski pass at Verbier!

However I do agree that golf should be made more accessible for everyone and less elitist. I know the Open courses should have some special kudos because they are Open courses but charging a very high rate just because people will pay it, doesn’t sit well with me.