The East Riding of Yorkshire packs a surprising range of golf into a stretch of coast and farmland that many visitors drive straight through on their way to the Wolds. Twenty-one clubs are spread from Withernsea in the south to Bridlington and Hornsea on the North Sea coast, with a cluster of inland courses around Hull, Beverley and Cottingham. Green fees start from as little as £12, which keeps the county accessible for anyone building a golfing week around Yorkshire without blowing the budget on a single round.
Links golf on the coast
The three coastal clubs are the county's headline act. Bridlington Links was laid out in 1905 by J. H. Taylor, the five-time Open Champion, and its pedigree shows in the honours roll: Bill Stout won the English Amateur Championship here in 1928 before representing Great Britain in the 1930 Walker Cup, and the club marked its centenary in 2005. A few miles round the headland, Flamborough Head Golf Club sits on the cliff top itself, with the Old Beacon lighthouse, built around 1674, standing beside the 5th tee and views across the North Sea to both of Flamborough's lighthouses. Hornsea Golf Club has the most storied design history of the three — founded in 1898 by Alex 'Sandy' Herd, moved to its present site in 1908, then reworked in the early 1900s by Alister MacKenzie and later James Braid, so it carries the fingerprints of three significant names in golf architecture across gently undulating ground shaped by gorse and wind-bent thorn.
Parkland inland
Parkland courses make up the bulk of the county, eleven of the twenty-one clubs, and they vary more than the label suggests. Beverley & East Riding Golf Club, founded in 1889, is the oldest inland club in Yorkshire and plays over Westwood common land, with grazing cattle sharing the course and links-style fairways that feel closer to the coast than its inland setting suggests — enough to earn it a place in Top 100 Golf Courses lists. Hull Golf Club, designed by James Braid and opened in 1925 at Kirk Ella, is the city's original club, tracing back to a nine-hole layout in 1906, and its driveable par-4 10th with a pond guarding the green remains a genuine risk-reward test. Driffield Golf Club sits on the Sunderlandwick Estate, where the par-5 11th crosses three ponds and a trout stream, and its clubhouse was reopened in 2002 by Ryder Cup player Howard Clark. Brough Golf Club has built a strong competitive history of its own, hosting the Brough Classic Pro-Am since 1978, the Forte PGA Seniors Championship in 1990, and the British Girls Championship in 2001. More recent additions include Boothferry, a flat, easily walked Donald Steel design near Goole with natural dykes, and Burstwick Country Golf near Hull, opened in 2004 to a Jonathan Gaunt design built around risk and reward on every hole.
Choosing where to play
For a short break, mixing styles makes sense: a links round at Flamborough Head or Bridlington in the morning, then something gentler inland in the afternoon. Cottingham Parks, set across 200 acres with water and mounding, offers two 18-hole courses on one site — Cottingham Parks itself and Skidby Lakes — which suits golfers wanting variety without moving venue. Hessle Golf Club, redesigned by Peter Alliss's firm and relocated to Raywell in 1975, and Ganstead Park, expanded from nine holes since 1976 and now member-owned, both offer easier walking for those covering more than one round in a day. With courses concentrated around Hull, Beverley, Cottingham, Bridlington and York, and towns like Hornsea, Driffield and Withernsea each holding their own club, the East Riding rewards a bit of planning rather than a single obvious base.