Is Wales the world’s most underrated golf destination? A visitor makes the case

The 12th hole at Southerndown Golf Club is a demanding 378-yard par-4 that doglegs left. I’d been piping my drives all day, so I took an aggressive line over the edge of the gorse, planning to cut the corner. But I swung too hard and tugged the ball left. As my Titleist sailed out of view, I heard a sound I’ll never forget — the unmistakable bleat of a very angry sheep.  

Feeling awful and fearing the worst, I trudged off to find my ball. Anxious thoughts filled my head: How steep is the fine for sniping a sheep. Would I be charged by the pound? Does my travel insurance cover slaughtered livestock? 

Three hours into my first trip to Wales, I was convinced the British tabloids were going to turn me into an agricultural Amanda Knox. 

***

ODDS ARE YOU HAVEN’T heard of Southerndown. I had no idea it existed until a few weeks before I played there. 

Like most American golfers, I was pretty much clueless about the Welsh version of the game. I’d always wanted to play Royal Porthcawl, a legendary links currently ranked 33rd on GOLF’s list of the Top 100 Courses in the UK and Ireland. The club has played host to three men’s Senior Opens, and this week is the venue for the Women’s Open. Other than that, the only thing I knew about golf in Wales was Ian Woosnam.

Then a last-minute scheduling change in my family vacation left me with four days to kill in the UK. The perfect amount of time for a quick golf getaway, so my mind started racing. Was this my chance to finally play Muirfield and Royal Dornoch? Maybe I could squeeze in the holy trifecta of Ballybunion, Royal Portrush and Royal County Down? What about Sunningdale? Lahinch? Royal St. George’s? The list was endless but reality was more restricted.

Thanks to the global golf boom, the current green fee at Kingsbarns is a whopping $590, which makes Royal County Down feel like bargain at $560. At those prices, getting on just one of those all-timers would blow up my golf budget.

Landing a tee time was an even bigger problem. Most legendary courses in the UK and Ireland now need to be booked at least a year out. North Berwick’s tee sheet sold out for 2025 within hours of its times being released.

I needed a place where I could get on a handful of great layouts less than a month out without burning through the college fund like John Daly with a pack of Marlboros. When I ran my dilemma by my best-traveled golf buddy, the answer came firm and fast: “Go to Wales. The courses there are criminally overlooked.”

Wales? As a golfing mecca? I was skeptical. Sure, there was Royal Porthcawl, but were there any other courses nearby worth playing? With nothing to lose, I took a night off from scrolling Hogan swing videos to see what the Welsh golf scene was all about. In less than an hour, I had a new obsession.

In a few keystrokes I learned that South Wales is home to a cluster of highly regarded courses. Two are less than 20 minutes from Royal Porthcawl by car; two others are a longer but very doable drive.

These courses remain mostly unknown to Americans, but like most clubs in the UK, they welcome outside play. Some even offer on-site dorm-style accommodations. And because these Welsh gems have been so overlooked for so long, they’re shockingly easy to get on.

By the next day, I had tee times at four courses I hadn’t known existed — Southerndown, Pyle & Kenfig, Tenby and Pennard. But what about Royal Porthcawl? My departure was three weeks away — pretty much last-minute in golf trip terms — and Porthcawl was a world-class course about to host a women’s major. The celebrated club still welcomed me with open arms. In less than 48 hours, I booked an itinerary that would let me check off a serious bucket-lister and explore a new corner of the golf world. 

Three weeks later, my overnight flight touched down at Heathrow on a bright Sunday morning. My rental car was cheap (about $200 for four days), and the three-hour trip to Wales was a stress-free straight shot. I only drove down the wrong side of the highway once. By mid-afternoon, I was slinking across the 12th fairway at Southerndown preparing to do hard time for ovine execution. 

***

WILLIE FERNIE LAID OUT the first routing at Southerndown in 1905. Future revisions came at the hands of a high-pedigree triumvirate: Willie Park, Herbert Fowler and Harry Colt.

The course sits on limestone hills 200 feet above Bristol Channel. Over the centuries, wind has deposited so much sand from the beach below onto the course that it plays more like linksland than country pasture. Tom Doak once proclaimed Southerndown the best downland track in the UK. 

The first hole plays straight uphill from the stately clubhouse. It’s a blood-pumping good climb that Henry Cotton called one of the toughest openers in golf. The next two holes are quality ones, with dazzling views of the water below. But the blind tee shots and the slope of the land make it impossible to know what lies ahead.

Only after reaching the 5th tee can first-timers fully take in the splendid plain of rolling golfland they’re about to enjoy. Pot bunkers, blooming gorse, roaming sheep, and holes carved by Colt — Southerndown has everything Americans want when they play in Britain, and all for a palatable green fee of $145. I was hooked.

The 5th is a badass hillside par-3 that plays over a small valley. Dubbed Carter’s folly, the hole is no joke. Any shot short will end up in a deep bunker or 30 feet below the green. The promise of what was to come was so great that I didn’t care when Carter ate my lunch.

The next six holes were a blast. Wales hadn’t seen rain in weeks, and the rock-hard fairways made it fun to pretend I could put up Bryson numbers with my driver. The day’s only blemish was the sheep incident on 12. But when I finally rounded the dogleg, I discovered both the victim and my Pro V1 were alive and well. Touched by the golf gods, I could continue my Welsh odyssey without an arraignment. 

The sun was going down as I closed out the day on 18, a first-rate downhill par-4 with a split-level fairway. The gloaming, the clubhouse and the bay in the distance made it a breathtaking walk home. 

After my round, I ran into a group of Americans a day ahead of me on the same itinerary. Their leader had first played in Wales 18 years earlier and marveled that the country still felt undiscovered by foreign golfers. When I told him I hoped to change that, he smiled and threatened to bury me in the dunes. He seemed to be only half joking.

***

DAY TWO BROUGHT ME to Pyle & Kenfig Golf Club, another under-the-radar smasher built on true linksland practically next door to Royal Porthcawl. Colt laid out the front nine in 1922. After World War II, Philip McKenzie Ross expanded the course to the current 18 holes.

Pyle & Kenfig is unknown to most Americans but not the R&A. Since 1988, the seaside charmer has co-hosted three men’s Amateur Championships. Leona Maguire won the 2017 Women’s Amateur there, and the club has been a qualifying venue for multiple Senior Opens. Earlier this summer the course served as the final qualifying site for the Women’s Open at Royal Porthcawl. So yes, Pyle & Kenfig is more than good enough for your game.

Some criticize Colt’s front nine as a bit basic. To my taste, it’s an outstanding test of links golf. The front’s only weakness is that it pales in comparison the majestic back. After 10 strong holes, you arrive at the 11th tee and feel that jolt of adrenaline every links golfer is chasing. The 509-yard par-5 doglegs through tall grass to an elevated green guarded by deep bunkers and dunes. It’s a ridiculously beautiful hole, exactly what you came to the UK to play. 

The following four holes wind through towering dunes hard by the sea, a masterful routing with an edge-of-the-world feel, and the scale and drama of Ballybunion or Royal County Down. But you won’t have to book a year in advance. And you can play it for as little as $130.

The par-3 15th is a 204-yard tester with a wavy green nestled in the dunes. After three tough but excellent closing pa-4s, the round was over much too fast. Looking back, it’s easy to see why the R&A loves P&K. What I don’t understand is why the course hasn’t cracked the UK and Ireland Top 100. 

After a killer curry at a local Indian restaurant, I crashed hard in my room over the Pyle & Kenfig clubhouse. Like all dormy set ups, the accommodations were simple but welcoming — a basic single or double room with en suite bath. 

It’s not the Four Seasons, but you’re paying a fraction of the cost ($145 for a twin room; $112 for a single) for a prime location and the fun of feeling like a member of a private club. The staff couldn’t have been more gracious, and the full Welsh breakfast included in the price was the ideal way to start the golfing day. 

In less than 36 hours, I had played two Harry Colt tracks for roughly the same price as the daily fee slogs back home. That night I drifted off to sleep thinking my new American friend was right. The golf in Wales so good — and such a good deal — that maybe I should just keep my mouth shut. 

And the golf was about to get even better.

***

ROYAL PORTHCAWL IS RIGHTLY recognized as one of the game’s great links. If it were in Scotland or either Ireland, it would surely land even higher in the rankings. Some rate it alongside Royal Dornoch and Royal County Down as the best courses that have never hosted an Open Championship.

Its design history is long and complicated. Ramsey Hunter laid out the first 18-hole routing, which opened in 1898. Subsequent renovations were executed by a series of celebrated names, including Colt, F.G. Hawtree, J.H. Taylor, and Tom Simpson.

The list of famous championships played at Royal Porthcawl is even longer.  On top of those professional majors, it includes a Walker cup, a Curtis cup, and seven British Amateurs. The R&A can’t stay away from the place, and neither should you.

Only Royal Porthcawl’s location keeps it off the UK buddy trip rota. But being more out of the way also makes it one of the best bargains in bucket-list golf. With a high-season green fee of $330, it was the most expensive course on my trip. But that’s far less than those other fabled courses, and you’re playing an all-world links in the footsteps of Walter Hagen, Tom Watson, and Tiger Woods.

The course wanders across rugged, treeless terrain overlooking Rest Bay. There are no towering dunes at Royal Porthcawl, making it the rare championship links where you can see the water from every hole. The open layout leaves the course at the mercy of the wind, but even on a flat day, it’s a stern test.

The first three holes run along the sea. First time visitors learn quickly that the devilish greens offer more undulations than are typically found on links courses. More fun, too. 

After that exceptional trio, the course turns inland. The 200-yard 4th is the longest par-3 on the course, a postcard hole with a terraced green that’s easy to put off of. I did.

The uphill 5th is the first of Royal Porthcawl’s stellar par-5s , which many consider the course’s calling card. A stone boundary wall guards the left side as the hole guides players up to a plateau and the next four holes. Architecture nerds will tell you that elevated middle section of the course is actually heathland. But you won’t care about semantics because the views are spectacular and you’re having the time of your life. 

The stretch from the 10th to the 14th offers a bit of everything — sweeping vistas, blind tee shots, superb short holes and grinding long ones. It’s a wildly entertaining challenge, and then you finish with one of the toughest closing stretches in golf. 

The 18th is Royal Porthcawl’s only controversial hole, a short downhill par-4 that requires a tricky second shot to a hard-sloping green. At major championships, it typically plays as the opener. Many consider 18 a highly strategic finisher. A few feel it’s a chopped-up mess and Royal Porthcawl’s only flaw. I chipped in for birdie, so obviously it’s a genius hole.

That debate and all others are best settled over refreshments in Royal Porthcawl’s clubhouse, where visitors are welcomed after the round. The building is modest in size but deep in history, housing a wonderful collection of memorabilia from the many championships played there.

The club goes out of its way to make guests feel like members, and a meal on the patio with a pint of Royal Porthcawl ale is the perfect way to cap your round. As you watch the waves crash against the beach below, it’s hard to imagine a better day in golf. 

***

I WOULD HAVE STAYED on that patio until the club kicked me out, but I had another round that day and a 90-minute drive ahead.I spent most of that time thinking life would be all downhill after the joys of Royal Porthcawl, but the next stop on my itinerary proved me wrong.

Tenby Golf Club was founded in 1888 and bills itself as the birthplace of Welsh golf. In 1907, James Braid extended the original nine holes to 18. The seaside town of the same name that surrounds the club is a tourist destination on the Pembrokeshire coast. Visitors come for the beaches, Victorian homes and medieval ruins, but they should be playing golf.

As the club’s affable professional Rhys Harry explained, geography leaves Tenby chronically under-trafficked by visitors. The course is roughly 70 miles from the stellar constellation around Porthcawl. After playing that rota, golfers typically either return home or drive three and a half hours north to play Royal St. David’s and several other fine courses nearby. 

To remedy this, Tenby recently completed a $2.2 million redevelopment that modernized the clubhouse and pro shop. The club also added an upscale restaurant and dormy accommodations for up to 22 golfers. 

Tenby’s outlier status kept it off my original list of South Wales must-plays. But as I was planning the trip, I got a tip that the course was “not to be missed.” As golfing intel goes, that advice was up there with the otherworldly voice telling Johnny Miller to open his stance that Sunday at Oakmont.

Topping out at 6,530 yards, Tenby is short by modern standards. But what it lacks in yardage it more than makes up for with strategic choices. It’s a thinking person’s course, even when the wind is down.

The course abuts Carmarthen Bay, but you won’t see the water for the first three holes. You will find seashells in the bunkers that hint at what’s to come. Critics generally call the difficult 3rd Tenby’s first top-notch hole. The tight 343-yard par-4 plays to a plateaued green that’s hard to hold on a still day. It’s a serious test, but I liked the quirky 407-yard 4th even more. 

From the tee, players get their first view of South Beach. The blind drive leaves you with a blind second shot to a deep punchbowl green. Pure links magic. After four holes, I was starting to forget my summer fling with Royal Porthcawl and making plans to marry Tenby.

After the beachside 5th tee, the course moves inland. The next Instagram moment comes at the 7th, a long par-4 with an active railway line running down the right side. Still scarred by the near sheep slaughter at Southerndown, I decided to let the train pass before teeing off.

Blind shots, crisscrossing holes, beachside tees, fairways along train tracks, greens hidden in dunes –—Tenby’s first eight holes offered the full-on British golf experience. But I still hadn’t seen the best part of the course.

The par-4 9th is called Jenkins View, and what a sight it is. The elevated tee turns back on the course, giving players a panorama of the links, beach, and town. Golf has been played at Tenby for at least 150 years, so I’m sure I wasn’t the first person so captivated by the view that he topped his drive into the shrubs below. 

After two stout par-4s, I came to the brutally entertaining par-3 12th. Measuring 193 yards from the tips, it plays along the waterto an elevated green dying to ricochet your tee shot into the two valleys below. The name of the hole is Y Ddau Gwm, which I believe is Welsh for “There goes your score.”  

Even on a flat day, the 12th is a backbreaker, and a sign at the tee warns players they must report balls hit onto the beach. When the wind is howling, I’m sure some 4-irons get tossed there, too.

Fifteen, 16 and 17 sit across those train tracks on ground that feels more like pasture than linksland. Some say this stretch doesn’t fully fit the character of the rest of the course. Perhaps, but they’re still tremendously entertaining holes.

At a time when so many modern architects are trying to capture the classic links vibe, Tenby is an old-school original. Was it the best course I played on the trip? No. But it’s the one I’ve thought about the most since.

***

MY LAST DAY IN WALES began with a 45-minute drive west toward Swansea. As I climbed into the hills above Wales’s second largest city, I resigned myself to thinking that an inland course could never match the joys of the coastal wonders I’d just played. I hadn’t given Pennard Golf Club a chance.

James Braid laid out Pennard’s first full 18 in 1908. It’s an ingenious routing carved into aggressively rolling farmland on the Gower Peninsula, 200 feet above Three Cliffs Bay. The club bills itself as “The Links in the Sky,” and the course is just as astonishing as the views. Think of Pennard as Southerndown’s more dramatic — and more challenging — cousin. 

The first six holes are a good-time introduction to two of the course’s defining characteristics: heaving terrain and electric fences. Those thin, wire barriers surround the greens to keep them from being trampled by wandering cows. 

The highlight of that opening stretch is the long par-5 4th. After a blind tee shot, players must navigate out-of-bounds on the right as they play to the green. Just as I started wondering if all those cattle guards were really necessary, a family of cows sauntered in front of me. It was nice to know I wasn’t the only mammal making a mess in the 4th fairway.  

The real jaw-dropping starts at the 347-yard 7th, one of the most striking par-4s you’ll ever play. The tee shot asks you to aim between the ruins of a medieval church and a crumbling late 13th-century Norman castle. The ancient structures sit on a bluff over a tidal inlet that feeds into Three Cliffs Bay, daring you to hit a banana ball so you can wander over and take in the view. I was disappointed when my drive split the fairway. 

The second shot plays to a clifftop punchbowl green that slopes away to the sea and feels impossible to hit. When you finally get there, you discover a rippling putting surface that threatens to do to your brain what time and weather did to that castle. It’s a magnificent setting and a hole you’ll never forget. Walking off the green in the shadow of those ruins, I wondered if any of the romantic poets ever wrote an ode to a three putt. 

The rest of the course is a wild and inventive ride. When the turf is firm, the 297-yard par-4 12th offers a chance to take on the green with less than driver. The 207-yard par-3 13th plays to a hillside green as picturesque as it is exacting.

Pennard’s three finishing holes provide a glorious climax. The 16th and 17th are stellar back-to-back par-5s with blind shots, sharp angles, killer views and plenty of sidehill stances. After the long, narrow par-4 18th, I was thrilled to be back on level ground and dying to play the course again.

Tom Doak has called Pennard one of his all-time favorites, and it’s easy to see why. It’s an inspired, purposeful routing that forces you to think on just about every shot. But Doak also admits Pennard’s rollercoaster terrain might not be for everyone. 

I think the course is a must-play, quirky and eccentric, with more cows than flat lies. Even if you don’t love it, you won’t forget it.

***

DRIVING BACK TO LONDON, I struggled to wrap my head around what I’d just experienced. Wales could be the best travel deal in golf, so why wasn’t it teeming with foreign visitors?

I adore Scotland and Ireland, but the courses in Wales are cheaper, the weather is generally better, and you don’t have to book a year out. The five tracks I played were just as good — and as good a time — as their brethren up north. 

But it wasn’t just the first-class links. Wales has all the other things people fall for on UK golf trips: delicious curries, tasty fish and chips, charming pubs, fantastic beer and colorful locals who’ve had way too much fantastic beer. I was even run off a tight country lane by a speeding grannie in a Mini Cooper. 

It felt like I had found the last great undiscovered golf paradise, so I understood why my new Americans friends were afraid word would get out. But by the time I pulled into Heathrow, I knew I had to share the Welsh golf secret with the world. A few weeks from now, the best women golfers on the planet will be playing in Wales. Now the only question is, why aren’t you? 

Just make sure you aim away from the sheep.