Travel Tips

Nobody tells you how quickly a golf trip adds up.

Green fees. Fuel. Maybe a night away. Food and drinks at the 19th hole. By the time you’ve added it all up, a weekend golf trip can cost more than a short-haul flight — and that’s before you’ve decided whether a membership makes sense.

I’ve been navigating this for 22 years. Two club memberships, hundreds of pay-and-play rounds, a few weekend breaks, and more than a few times I’ve got the maths badly wrong. This page is everything I wish someone had told me at the start.

It’s a working guide — I’ll keep adding to it as I play more and learn more. If you’ve got something worth adding, drop me a message.

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THE TIPS

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💡 Tip 1 — Book 7 Days Out for a Day Visit

Most golf courses open their tee time bookings to members four weeks in advance and non-members three weeks in advance. That means by the time you can book, the best Saturday morning slots are often already gone.

But here’s the thing most people miss: the weather.

Booking three weeks out and the British weather is anyone’s guess. Book seven days in advance and you’ve got a realistic forecast to work with. You’ll also often find that slots open up in that final week as people cancel — including some of the better morning times.

The rule of thumb: Day visit to a local course → book 7 days out. Weekend breakaway → book well in advance and lock in your tee times before you book anything else. The tee time is the anchor. Hotel and travel come second.

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💡 Tip 2 — Take Twilight Golf Seriously

Twilight golf is one of the most underused options in UK golf, and in summer it’s genuinely brilliant.

Traffic on the course drops off significantly after 4pm. If you’re playing as a single or a two-ball, you can complete 18 holes in around three hours — no waiting on the tee, no slow groups ahead of you. Green fees are usually cheaper after 4pm too, sometimes significantly so.

The sweet spot is a 4:00–4:30pm tee time in late spring through early autumn. You’ll get full daylight until at least 8pm, a quieter course, a lower fee, and a round that’s often more enjoyable than a busy Saturday morning.

Worth checking: Many courses don’t advertise their twilight rates prominently. Call ahead or look at the booking system — the discount is usually applied automatically once you select a late afternoon slot.

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💡 Tip 3 — Use GolfNow and Always Check Hot Deals

GolfNow is the booking platform I use most consistently. It aggregates tee times from hundreds of UK courses in one place, and the pricing is often better than booking directly with the course.

The feature worth knowing about is Hot Deals — discounted tee times that courses release at short notice, usually within the next 48 hours. If you’re flexible on when you play, Hot Deals can get you onto courses at a fraction of the standard green fee. I’ve played rounds through Hot Deals that would have cost three times as much booked normally.

How to use it:

• Search your area or a specific course
• Filter by date and sort by price
• Check Hot Deals first before looking at standard rates
• Book early in the week for weekend slots — the best deals go fast

Other platforms worth knowing: Supreme Golf aggregates multiple booking sites at once. Golfshake is useful for course reviews alongside booking.

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💡 Tip 4 — The Honest Membership vs Pay-and-Play Calculation

I’ve held memberships at two clubs — Stockwood Park and Redbourn — and cancelled both when work took over. So I’ve run this calculation more than once.

Here’s the honest version:

Membership makes sense if you play more than five times a month.
At that frequency, the monthly membership fee almost always works out cheaper than the equivalent pay-and-play green fees. You also get priority booking, which matters more than people realise.

Pay-and-play makes more sense if you’re playing 15–20 rounds a year — which is closer to the reality for most working golfers. At that frequency, membership fees become hard to justify. Do the maths on your actual rounds played, not the rounds you intend to play.

The hidden cost of membership that nobody talks about: When you’re a member, you feel obligated to play even when the conditions are poor or life is busy. That guilt is real — and cancelling a membership you’re barely using still takes months of resolve.

The variety argument — and it’s a strong one: With pay-and-play, every round can be somewhere different. New layouts, new challenges, new courses to tick off the list. A membership ties you to one course — and however good that course is, you will get
bored of the same 18 holes after a few months. Some clubs now offer partner course arrangements where your membership gives you access to one or two additional venues, which helps. But even then, the variety available through pay-and-play isn’t close to what you get booking freely across dozens of courses. If exploring UK golf is part of why you play — and for me it absolutely is — pay-and-play keeps that door wide open.

My rule: If you take out a membership, commit to a minimum of three rounds a month even through winter. If you can’t maintain that consistently, pay-and-play keeps you honest and keeps the game enjoyable rather than feeling like an obligation.

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💡 Tip 5 — Stay-and-Play Packages Beat Booking Separately

If you’re planning a weekend golf trip and staying overnight, always look at the resort’s stay-and-play packages before booking hotel and tee times separately.

Most golf resorts — Celtic Manor, The Belfry, Gleneagles, and many smaller clubs with on-site accommodation — offer packages where accommodation and green fees are bundled at a discount. The saving is often £50–£100 per person compared to booking the same elements separately. They also take the logistics out of the equation: one booking, one payment, everything confirmed.

For group trips, two companies are worth going to directly:

• Your Golf Travel — strong on UK and European packages, good value for groups of four or more. Price match guarantee worth using.
• Golfbreaks — excellent course access, particularly for premium venues that are hard to book independently. Slightly more premium pricing but the service justifies it for a special trip.

Both will build a bespoke itinerary for a group trip. Get quotes from both before committing — the difference can be significant depending on the destination.

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COMING UP ON TRAVEL TIPS

More coming on this

These are the guides I’m building out next. Each will get its own full post when I’ve got something worth saying.

Guide	Status
How to plan a two-night golf break in Wales — Celtic Manor to Royal Porthcawl	In progress
The honest cost of a Scottish golf trip — St Andrews, Kingsbarns, and what it actually adds up to	Planning
Playing 18 courses in Hertfordshire — the local golfer’s guide to the county	Planning
The best twilight golf courses within an hour of the M25	Planning
Group golf trip checklist — what to sort before anyone books anything	Coming

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What planning question keeps tripping you up? Tell me — I’ll write the post.

— Jabunong