How much are the green fees to play top 100 courses in Britain and Ireland in summer 2025?

Here’s New Year news that will surprise none of you. If you want to play the best golf courses in Great Britain and Ireland this year, it’s going to cost more. We scoured the websites of some of most prestigious courses to see how much their green fee is in peak summer.

If you’ve been following the trends of recent years, you’ll understand they are only going one way. Yes, that’s right, up.

Taking our list of the Top 100 courses in GB&I, what are the trends that are emerging this year? What is the most expensive course on the list? What is the cheapest? And where do you need to look if you want to sniff out some savings?

What are the headlines?

Turnberry is the most expensive golf course to play in Great Britain & Ireland. A peak summer-time green fee will set you back an astonishing £1,000. That makes the Ailsa easily the costliest golf course of 2025. They will tell you that you don’t need to pay that much, that it’s substantially reduced for those who book a stay at the famous hotel. But it is the rack-rate that is residing on their website and so we’ve published it as such.

The Top 100 course on our list with the lowest green fee is Seacroft at £85. They, along with Highlands club Brora at £95, are the only layouts on the list under £100. Silloth, who for many years could claim to be the best value course in the line up, has increased £15 to £110 this summer.

For a course that is so high in the standings – Silloth is 57th in our GB&I Top 100 – you might still think it remains an outlier among some much more expensive competition.

Eight courses now cost £400 or more to play a single round. They are: Turnberry, Royal County Down, Royal Birkdale, Kingsbarns, Trump International, Royal Lytham, Adare Manor and Trump Ireland. Old Head of Kinsale is on the cusp on the £400 mark, depending on your conversion rate from pounds to euros.

Twenty nine of the top 50 courses on the GB&I list are over £300 and 40 of the top 100 are priced at that level.

What are the green fees at GB&I’s top 100 golf courses?

1. Royal County Down: £425
2. Old Course: £340
3. Turnberry: £1,000
4. Muirfield: £365
5. Royal Portrush: £385
6. Royal St George’s: £350
7. Portmarnock: 405 euros
8. Royal Birkdale: £400
9. Sunningdale Old: £395
10. Royal Lytham & St Annes: £410
11. North Berwick: £285
12. Royal Dornoch: £320
13. Lahinch: 375 euros
14. Rosapenna (St Patrick’s Links): 280 euros
15. Kingsbarns: £448
16. Carnoustie: £321
17. Sunningdale New: £395
18. Skibo Castle: No tee times
19. Woodhall Spa (Hotchkin): £230 (£160 if a member of a golf club)
20. Waterville: 375 euros
21. Cruden Bay: £200
22. Royal Cinque Ports: £275
23. Saunton (East): £150
24. County Sligo: 350 euros
25. Ballybunion (Old): 400 euros
26. Cabot Highlands: £330
27. Burnham & Berrow: £195
28. Royal West Norfolk: Price on application
29. Royal Liverpool: Not yet available for 2025 (£310 in 2024)
30. Formby: £300
31. Swinley Forest: Price on application
32. Alwoodley: £210
33. The Island: 295 euros
34. Loch Lomond: N/A
35. Gleneagles (King’s): £330
36. Royal Troon (Old): £365
37. Western Gailes: £305
38. Royal Aberdeen: £265
39. Prestwick: £350
40. Hillside: £308
41. Ganton: £220
42. Trump International: £495
43. West Sussex: Not yet available for 2025. £175 in 2024
44. Royal Porthcawl: £250
45. Hollinwell: £270
46. St George’s Hill: £285
47. Walton Heath (Old): £350
48. County Louth: Not yet available for 2025
49. Gleneagles (Queen’s): £330
50. St Enodoc: £160
51. Old Head of Kinsale: 475 euros
52. The European: 400 euros
53. Elie: £180
54. Gullane No. 1: £300
55. The Machrie: £185
56. Hankley Common: £215
57. Silloth: £110
58. Nairn: £300
59. Trump Ireland: 525 euros
60. Ardfin: Price on application
61. Machrihanish: £140
62. Hunstanton: £175
63. Woking: £205
64. Adare Manor: 500 euros for resort residents
65. Ballyliffin (Glashedy): 300 euros
66. Southport & Ainsdale: £275
67. West Lancashire: £250
68. Rye: Price on application
69. The Berkshire (Red): £365
70. Royal St David’s: £140
71. Prince’s: £190
72. Dumbarnie Links: £335
73. Royal North Devon: £120
74. Tralee: 375 euros
75. Parkstone: £185
76. Aldeburgh: Not yet available for 2025
77. Sherwood Forest: £145
78. Panmure: £190
79. St Andrews (New): £150
80. Luffness New: £200
81. Machrihanish Dunes: £100
82. Aberdovey: £120
83. The Berkshire (Blue): £365
84. Walton Heath (New): £350
85. Worplesdon: £195
86. Carne: 195 euros
87. Ballyliffin (Old): 280 euros
88. Pennard: £175
89. Moortown: £200
90. Seacroft: £85
91. Liphook: £190
92. Brora: £95
93. Trevose: £125
94. Hindhead: Not yet available for 2025. £187 in 2024
95. The Renaissance Club: N/A
96. Saunton (West): £150
97. Delamere Forest: £165
98. Goswick: £130
99. Seaton Carew: £120
100. Conwy: £125

What are the trends?

Up, up, and away! Every course in the top 10 has increased their green fee in 2025 and some by chunky numbers. Royal County Down is £65 more expensive than 2024 (figure from UK Golf Guy) – or an increase of 18 per cent. Turnberry has obviously doubled – with the earlier mentioned caveat – while the Old Course, priced at £195 in 2021, is now weighing in at £340, up from £320 last year.

Royal Portrush is now £385, up from £340, and North Berwick – for many years considered a bargain to play among the very elite courses – is now £285.

A round at each of the top 10 courses in 2025 would cost a golfer £4,411. As it stands, with a selection of courses either not advertising their summer green fee, not being available for visitor play, or inviting applications from golfers to discover green fee rates, it would set a player back about £24,000 to play the 88 of the top 100 courses currently advertising their 2025 prices.

If our maths is right, that works out on average at about £15 a hole or, roughly, £3 a stroke for a player who shoots around 90.

It’s getting quite expensive to tick off those lists!

Within the regions, Ireland is a very costly Top 100 trip indeed, while Cornwall and Devon (St Enedoc £160, Royal North Devon £120, Trevose £125, Saunton West £150, Saunton East £150) and North Wales (Conwy £125, Royal St David’s £140, Aberdovey £120) look to be where ‘value’ can be found.

The more astute of you may understand those courses, along with the likes of Goswick (£130) and Seaton Carew (£120) in the North East of England, might be considered off the beaten path for some players. But if you’re prepared to travel you can still play a number of Top 100 courses in a region for the price of one big trophy course or Open venue.

Playing out of season clearly brings the best green fee value

If you’re not willing to stump up the kind of cash being demanded here – and countless internet polls and social media suggest there are a chunk of golfers in the UK who are happy to leave these times to the international market they’re so obviously geared towards – there is another way.

The prices listed above constitute the most expensive time offered by a Top 100 club. It is often cheaper to play these courses during the week, rather than at a weekend, and you can make substantial savings if you are prepared to be flexible in the months you want to tee it up.

You might debate the effects of climate change, but recent patterns have suggested a warmer winter and a summer that can go on well into October. Lots of these golf clubs offer reduced prices in the winter and shoulder seasons and if you get lucky with the weather you can enjoy an excellent trip at a cut-down mark compared with the likes of July and August.

I’ve personally been doing this for years – booking an early season trip towards the end of March and playing the likes of North Berwick, Elie, Castle Course, New and Carnoustie at much lower green fees.

You can play Nairn‘s Championship course for £120 in March or £300 in April peak. The green fee price at Tralee increases 175 euros over one week in mid-April. The Old Course, albeit off mats, is £160 right now compared with £340 in the spring and summer. Old Head is 475 euros from April 23 until October 12 but 250 euros until the end of that month.

While none of these could be considered bargain basement fees, for those searching for the cheapest available prices on these courses it does show there are huge discounts to be had for those who want to organise a special trip but don’t want to do it at the most expensive times.

What do we think of the green fee debate?

Tom Irwin and I talked about the current green fee prices on The NCG Golf Podcast. You can listen in here, but we looked over the list, as well as the cost, and had our say.

“There are people I know who are doing trips to these places from this country next summer, but they’re few and far between,” said Tom. “And I don’t think they’re doing it for the value.

“They’re doing it because they can afford to do it, and they want to go and play the best courses in GB&I and they’re ticking off Open venues and ticking off courses s from the top 100 that they haven’t played.

“I don’t think it’s any great secret that these prices are for the US market, aren’t they? That’s the experience we’ve had when speaking to people setting the prices – that they still think there is the demand there for these courses.

“If you go and chat to any of the secretaries or any of the managers at any of these venues about where the majority of their income comes come it will be getting towards 100 per cent from American tour operators or overseas operators. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that, is there? If people are willing to pay it, I think you are within your rights to charge it.”

I expressed a contradiction. In the past, I’ve complained about ever rising green fees – particularly at those courses where I’ve felt there was a tradition and heritage about them which went above mere money. I felt there were some places where accessibility should be maintained as much as possible because of where they sat in the pantheon of golf’s history.

Then I willingly paid an inflated dynamic price for a high-profile concert later this year and realised the hypocrisy in my argument. I was willing to pay that price, as much as I didn’t like what it cost. There will always be people willing to do that – whether it’s because they’ve got the funds or because they are willing to make the sacrifice for a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

What I worry about is the trickle down. If the courses below these elites are increasing their prices substantially too – in an effort to ‘keep up with the Joneses’ – then the price of golf becomes more expensive for everyone. That’s not particularly inclusive as we wait to see what happens to the post-Covid participation boom over the next couple of years.

Tom expressed an interesting idea, which was that perhaps governing bodies, such as the R&A, could subsidise green fees at courses that have held an Open to keep the prices accessible.

But what feels certain is that we’ll be revisiting this debate in a further 12 months and probably discovering prices have gone up again. Until they’ve hit a ceiling where demand starts to fall, there is surely no incentive for these most prestigious of golf courses to go any other way.

But there is a sure-fire way to get a discount on playing Top 100 courses in GB&I

This year 25 of the courses in our GB&I list can be played on NCG Top 100s Tour in 2025. It is the UK’s leading series of competitive events for amateur golfers and, as well as visiting some of the best layouts, you can make substantial savings compared to a peak green fee.

At the top end, a round at Gleneagles (Queen’s) would cost £330 but can be booked for £250 as part of the NCG Top 100s Tour. Alwoodley, priced at £210 in peak season, is £145, while Sherwood Forest, normally £145, is £95.

Golfers who sign up to NCG Top 100s Tour events get a welcome gift and bacon roll on arrival, as well as a one-course meal following play. They also compete for fantastic prizes from TaylorMade.

There are also further savings for golfers who book multi-event packages in our various swings, book in groups of four or more golfers, or who sign up for one of our membership packages.

These are the courses from our GB&I list than can you play on the NCG Top 100s Tour in 2025: Prince’s, Royal Cinque Ports, Royal Porthcawl, Pennard, Nairn, Cabot Highlands, Western Gailes (Sold Out), Sherwood Forest, Elie, Aberdovey, Royal St David’s, Gleneagles Queen’s, Seacroft, Woodhall Spa, Seaton Carew (Sold Out), Goswick, Conwy, Burnham and Berrow, Royal North Devon, Saunton West and East, Moortown, Alwoodley, Delamere Forest, Trump International.

To see the full list of events and to book a spot, visit our NCG Top 100s Tour website.

Now have your say

What do you make of this year’s Top 100 green fee prices? Would you be willing to pay some of the figures clubs are asking? What do you think is overpriced and what represents good value? Let us know by leaving a comment on X.

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