13/07/2026
You play a Slazenger 1, don’t you?
With Open Championship week set to kick off, it’s only fitting to highlight one of the greatest links courses in the world. Founded in 1887 by Scottish surgeon Dr William Laidlaw Purves, who, as legend has it, surveyed the Sandwich duneland and declared, “By George, what a place for a golf course!”, St. George’s was built to bring the ethos and traditions of St Andrews to the south of England. It also holds a unique spot in the game’s history. It was here, in Sandwich, Kent, in 1894, that the Open Championship was first played outside Scotland. In all, St. George’s has hosted 15 Opens, more than any course outside of Scotland.
A day at RSG is unlike any other experience in golf. The course has evolved over the years, but it has never lost the wildness, charm, and compelling difficulty that captured golfers’ imaginations back in the late 1800s. It’s a members’ club, but the welcome is genuinely warm. You’re treated as though you belong from the moment you arrive. Unlike traditional links that lay everything in front of you, St. George’s is something else entirely. The fairways are wide, but the quirks keep you entertained all the way round: some of the hardest bunkers in the game to escape, enough blind shots to keep you guessing, and a layout built to produce the best holes possible.
Where others have drifted from tradition, St. George’s leans in. Lunch in the Dining Room is a real part of the day here, not an afterthought, and the food is some of the best you’ll find at any club across the British Isles. There’s no better way to close out a round than a long, heavy lunch. Some don’t make it back out; others tempt fate for afternoon foursomes as the lunchtime wine slowly wears off.
