Goswick Links

Better known as Berwick-upon-Tweed, Goswick Links is one of the best – and most challenging – golf courses in the north of England. 

The list of big-name courses that elicit less pleasure than Goswick links is not a short one.

This James Braid design is in the ‘Next 100’ of our GB&I ranking but would surely not be of place were it to join the illustrious names in the main list and sits well inside the century of the finest GB&I Links.

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Goswick (which means Goose Farm in old English) might have begun life in 1890, but at 6,803 yards it can still comfortably challenge even the strongest player – a point illustrated by its status as a Open qualifier from 2008 to 2012 and its return to the rota in 2018.

It lies six miles south of the border town of Berwick-upon-Tweed (the club’s full name), so describing it as a traditional Scottish links sounds less daft.

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That is what it is; there is nothing fancy about anything here, from the car park and signs, to the clubhouse and its grand links. It sits between the railway line and the North Sea, but is a quarter of a mile inland and the vast dunes between the links and the beach makes you wonder at the course that could be created in those sand hills.

The 1st runs east towards those dunes as it plays to an elevated green that offers a good view of the property.

The green of the short 2nd has an attractive green site, with slopes everywhere; on the green, around it, and beyond it. It assures that this will be a round to savour, and from this lofty position it is back down to the lower land to holes defined by small dune ridges and waving fescue. There is almost certain to be a breeze blowing over the exposed site and likely to be a train hurtling past. There is gorgeous turf and revetted bunkers (there are also some marram-fringed ones) too); Goswick has the full links DNA.

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Its best stretch begins on the 12th. The drive there might be relatively mundane but it ends on a splendid inverted-saucer green and from it you see the appeal of the 13th, a pretty short hole that plays into the corner of the site, at the point that is as close to the beach as you get.

Turning for home, the expertly-bunkered 14th plays to a green sitting at the foot of a dune to the left and a mound on the right. Partially blind, it requires the use of a bell –another of ‘links’ box ticked.

This terrific run ends with a gripping downhill par 3 to a bowl green surrounded by bunkers. Its elevated tee, like that of the strong par-5 17th, offers panoramic views of this southern section of a links few would not enjoy.

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