St Anne’s Old Links offers a classic study in how to create a challenging, exciting golf course on relatively flat linksland. The course features superb green complexes and truly fiendish pot bunkers, which are its primary defense and demand excellent tactical play. The routing takes advantage of the natural undulations and features plenty of gorse and thick rough to penalize wayward shots.

You’ll find yourself relying heavily on your iron play, needing to land the ball in precise corridors to set up approaches that avoid the deep sand traps. The most memorable holes often include the stretch running closest to the coast, where the Irish Sea breeze is most influential. This is a thinking golfer’s course; it requires a blend of power and finesse, particularly the ability to utilize the ground game, which is the hallmark of traditional links play. It’s a wonderful complement to the stern challenge of Royal Lytham, offering a slightly more relaxed, though no less rigorous, round of authentic links golf.