A small county with a strong pedigree
South Tyneside doesn't have many golf clubs, but the ones it has carry serious weight. With just three courses across the county, split between East Boldon and South Shields, the choice is more about contrast than quantity: a parkland layout shaped by one of the game's great champions on one side, and a coastal course cut into cliffs above the North Sea on the other.
Boldon Golf Club, on the northern edge of Sunderland at East Boldon, dates back to 1912, though the course as it's known today owes its character to a later redesign. Harry Vardon, the six-time Open Champion, laid it out in 1926 as one of five courses he designed across the north east in his later years. The terrain is gentle rather than dramatic, but the setting has its own interest, with views towards the coastline and ground that falls within areas of scientific and geological special interest. An extensive bunker programme and years of mature tree planting have added definition to Vardon's original lines, so the course plays with more structure and strategy than its calm topography might suggest at first glance.
Clifftop golf at Whitburn
Whitburn Golf Club, in South Shields, is the county's coastal course and a proper contrast to Boldon's inland calm. Founded in 1931 and designed by Harry Colt and Co, it sits on the east side of the Cleadon Hills, overlooking North Sea cliffs on the stretch of coast between South Shields and Sunderland. The panoramic views along the coastline are part of the appeal, but the golf itself benefits from something less visible: a natural limestone base that gives the course excellent drainage. Whitburn rarely closes because of it, playing firm and true through the winter months when many inland courses are waterlogged. The club has kept the layout current too, completing a major two-stage development over the winters of 2023 and 2024 that added 31 new bunkers and lengthened several holes, sharpening a course that already had strong bones from its Colt-era design.
South Shields and what the county offers
South Shields Golf Club rounds out the trio, giving the town two courses within reach of each other and adding to a county where good golf is concentrated rather than spread thin. Between the three clubs, South Tyneside covers both of the north east's classic terrains: the sheltered parkland golf typified by Boldon, and the exposed, well-drained coastal golf that Whitburn represents. It's a useful pairing for a visiting golfer, since a bad-weather day can be shifted from one style to the other without much of a drive.
Green fees here are accessible by national standards, with rates starting from around £24, so a day mixing both courses needn't be an expensive one. What stands out most, though, is the design heritage packed into such a small area. Few counties this size can claim a Vardon course and a Colt course within a few miles of each other, and that alone makes South Tyneside worth a detour for golfers interested in the history written into the ground they're playing on, as much as the golf itself.