Best value 'mega courses'??

We would all love to play the best courses but so many of them are charging extortionate green fees these days. £150-200 per round is commonplace on a lot of the Top 100 courses. Does anyone know of some really good bargains out there to play these courses? Open competitions are one way of playing them, anyone got any other tips?

Best value green fee for a Top 100 course that I can see is Silloth @ £45/52 per round/day.

How's about seeing if a 606v2 rate is something they'd consider for registered 606v2 users?
I know it's not policy to advertise on this site but an article or two about specific courses would be helpful to them, especially if play at such a course was followed by glowing reports which encouraged other users. (And I don't mean lunch at The Berkshire is worth putting on a jacket for.)

Perhaps Silloth, for instance, might offer the Shabino rate to 606v2, say 35 pound.

I played Dondonald on a twilight ticket [3pm] last year for £30.

kwini

That is something really worth considering, I'll highlight this comment to one of the mods when they come online.

I've seen the comment and it's certainly something worth thinking about.

My personal opinion is that most courses wouldn't be interested but you never know until you try

de vere club members and their guests can play slaley's hunting for what works out at about £20, and about £12 twilight (which as it starts at 3pm in june/july... and gets earlier later in the summer... is an easy full round). Slightly more at weekends but not much. De vere get some stick, some of it deserved, but that's a steal.

With a de vere membership and an open fairways card there's a few bargains to be had... cheapskate that i am.

Davie,
Don't want to burden you but you must have a pretty good feel for the number of regular golf posters, must be at least 100, including s_r's regular nutrition pieces.

Would think that might be interesting for some courses, at certain times of the year. For instance, I was at Princes and RStG two Novembers ago and both places were deserted on an absolutely drop-dead gorgeous (golf in heaven said the Princes pro) day. It would be well worth their while to persuade golf enthusiasts to play there, even if transportation didn't necessarily match the Bentleys and Aston Martins in the car park.

Kwini beat me to the silloth shout out which is my usual answer to these questions.

I guess the best way to get better value from the top 100 courses is to look for the ones with decent day ticket prices. For example north berwick is £85 for a round but only £110 for a day ticket.

kwinigolfer wrote:How's about seeing if a 606v2 rate is something they'd consider for registered 606v2 users?
I know it's not policy to advertise on this site but an article or two about specific courses would be helpful to them, especially if play at such a course was followed by glowing reports which encouraged other users. (And I don't mean lunch at The Berkshire is worth putting on a jacket for.)

Perhaps Silloth, for instance, might offer the Shabino rate to 606v2, say 35 pound.

Its something that I mooted early on but was shot down by the regulars.

It was felt that we wouldnt have enough clout to get deals. However, I am more than happy to take this forward and come up with some suggestions going forward.

Let me know if you have any ideas.

A good start is for you all to vote on the 606 poll at the top to give us an idea of membership numbers

Hobo

If 606v2 pay my green fee I would be more than happy to do a very comprehensive write up on any course interested. I could send you some of the pictures I have taken of courses in the past to see what you think.

In fact check out some on my photobucket site.

https://s1224.photobucket.com/home/s0456769/index

beau desert is good value for a decent course

Ballyliffin golf club is very good value in co donegal.it hosted the Irish seniors open in 2008 and has hosted north west opens as well

Being a bit of a geek (and a Business Analyst in a previous life), and also wanting to tick off all the top 100 courses in Scotland, I did a bit of work on this a couple of years ago.

I plugged all the top 100 Scottish courses into excel and plotted the standard green fees against their 'rank'. What I found was that the correlation between cost and top 100 rank is at best weak, but it also shows the best 'value' vs top 100 rank. It's not all that robust but is indicative.

As you would expect, the best 'value' courses are the hardest to get to - Royal Dornach (a very high rank for the fee), Machrihanish, Machrie (Islay).

Ladybank and Montrose seem cheap for top 30 courses.

Towards the tail end there are a lot of sub 40 quid rounds available, but I'd guess that these would not be classed as 'mega courses'.

Personally I think that my best value so far was Machrihanish Dunes, which wasn't in the top 100 when I played it. Hands down the best £40 I've spent (on golf). Happy to send the spreadsheet to anyone that asks for it, but it is a little out of date. When I've 'done' the Scottish top 100, I'll move on the UK top 100.

cornwell, That's terrific.

If you are a member of any Scottish club you can get Castle Stuart for 90 I think, Kingsbarns for 85. , both offer a second round for a heavily discounted rate. That's pretty good value for world class golf.
As a member of St.Andrews I get it for 25 which has to be the deal of the century.

Played Dornoch the other year on a glorious April day for 80 too, that is simply a must play course for everyone.

How about a creating something whereby people can trade member guest rates at golf clubs? Went to book a round at Worplesden (Surrey) and was quoted £80. It's not on the County Card scheme, but was lucky to bump into a member in the car park - 2 days later playing as a guest for £40. Fabulous course in great condition. Admittedly not a "mega course" but you wouldn't turn it down, believe me!
How good would it be to be able to look up online people prepared to trade/host reduced rates? Just a thought!

If you're allowed to take into account Open event prices then Dornoch is surely unsurpassable. I paid £33 to play their open on 1st May, if I hadn't been such a Billy no-mates I could have played their 3 ball open with a couple of mates the day before for £72 for the team (£24 each). That is astonishing value which I cant see being beat any where. Although I have heard that Macrahanish's winter green fee is ridiculously cheap, £12?

I have heard many critical comments from guys I know who have played Macrahanish Dunes. Mind you that was soon after it opened.

Anyone played it recently?

Jas £12 is cheap but it probably costs £100 in petrol to get there!!

The Gullane 1 Open is £26 for 2 rounds with soup and sandwiches thrown in. It normally costs £90 just to play the course

its handicap limit 5 though