What’s the most depressing thing about winter golf? I’d argue it isn’t the freezing temperatures, the rock-hard fairways, or even the temporary greens.
It’s the dark. You wake up in the pitch black and, before you know it, the sun is disappearing again. And it means a weekend tee time in December is scarcer than a semiconductor in Silicon Valley.
But what’s the latest you can tee off to deny the bleak midwinter and still feel comfortable getting 18 holes in?
Clearly it depends on where in the UK you happen to reside. But if you’ve ever looked at a spare spot on a tee sheet and wondered ‘could I?’, new analysis is here to help you.
Research from Golftrolleywarehouse.co.uk has produced a minute-by-minute guide for golfers playing on the shortest day of the year, Monday, December 21.
They have calculated sunrise and sunset for 68 UK towns and cities and then worked out the last tee time for a four-hour round.
Who comes out best? It’s good news if you live in the South West of England, less so if you’re in the far north of Scotland.
While golfers in Aberdeen need to be on the 1st tee at 11.27 am to finish 18 holes before sunset, players in Penzance could get in almost an extra hour on the range. They can wait until 12.22 pm.
You might dream of playing at the Home of Golf but you’ll be scrambling if you’ve bagged a late ballot time close to Christmas. St Andrews golfers have a window of just two hours and 51 minutes to tee off between sunrise and the latest recommended tee time, declares Golftrolleywarehouse.co.uk’s analysis.
The company say they calculated sunrise and sunset for each of the towns and cities using the open-source astral library (NOAA solar calculation) and cross-checked it against a second library, PyEphem.
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Their ‘last tee time’ is sunset minus four hours and ‘time to tee off’ is the time from sunrise to that last tee time. The times were rounded to the minute.
Sunset, of course, does not mean full darkness. There can be roughly 40 to 50 minutes of twilight following it in December.
And while some towns and cities are hard done by in December, the picture is reversed in the summer months.
“Every winter golfer knows the feeling of racing the light on the back nine,” said Craig William of Golftrolleywarehouse.co.uk.
“We wanted to see how much that depends on where you live, and the gap is bigger than most people would guess. If you’re in the north of Scotland in December, book the first tee time you can get.”
What are the last tee times for 18 Holes on Monday, December 21?
| Location | Sunrise | Sunset | Last Tee Time | Time to Tee Off |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Penzance | 8:19am | 4:22pm | 12:22pm | 4h 03m |
| Plymouth | 8:15am | 4:15pm | 12:15pm | 4h 00m |
| Brighton | 8:01am | 3:56pm | 11:56am | 3h 56m |
| London | 8:04am | 3:53pm | 11:53am | 3h 49m |
| Cardiff | 8:16am | 4:05pm | 12:05pm | 3h 49m |
| Birmingham | 8:16am | 3:55pm | 11:55am | 3h 39m |
| Manchester | 8:23am | 3:51pm | 11:51am | 3h 28m |
| Belfast | 8:45am | 3:59pm | 11:59am | 3h 14m |
| Newcastle | 8:30am | 3:39pm | 11:39am | 3h 10m |
| Glasgow | 8:46am | 3:44pm | 11:44am | 2h 58m |
| Edinburgh | 8:43am | 3:39pm | 11:39am | 2h 57m |
| St Andrews | 8:44am | 3:35pm | 11:35am | 2h 51m |
| Inverness | 8:58am | 3:32pm | 11:32am | 2h 35m |
| Elgin | 8:55am | 3:27pm | 11:27am | 2h 32m |
To find the data for all 68 towns and cities, visit the research website.
Now have your say on winter golf UK
What’s the latest you’ve been able to tee off and still get a full round in during the December darkness? Where was it and how did the round finish? Let us know your winter golf UK habits in the comments, or get in touch on X.
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