There’s a particular kind of joy in a golf road trip.
Four friends, one car, a boot full of clubs, and a few days of nothing but golf, good food and the kind of stories that get retold for years. No airport queues, no baggage fees, no nervous wait at the carousel to see whether your clubs made it.
And the best part? You don’t need to leave the country to find world-class golf.
The UK is packed with regional clusters of championship links, close enough together to play several in a single trip. Take the Atlantic coast of Devon and Cornwall, where Royal North Devon, Saunton and Trevose sit within a comfortable drive of each other. Or head to South Wales, where Royal Porthcawl and the clifftop drama of Pennard make a superb two-course base.
With a bit of planning, a domestic golf tour can rival any trip abroad. Here’s how to get the logistics right, keep your gear dry, and make sure everything you pack comes home with you.
The Rise of the Domestic Tour
The South West: Atlantic links
Royal North Devon (Westward Ho!) is the oldest links course in England, founded in 1864. It’s a glorious throwback, laid out on common land where sheep and horses still graze, and home to the famous “Great Sea Rushes” that swallow wayward shots. Playing here is like stepping back into golf’s earliest days.
Saunton Golf Club, just across the estuary near Braunton, offers two outstanding links, the East and the West, set among some of the biggest dunes in the country. It’s the perfect place for a 36-hole day.
Trevose Golf & Country Club, near Padstow in Cornwall, is a Harry Colt design overlooking Constantine Bay. With on-site accommodation and a relaxed holiday atmosphere, it makes an ideal final stop.
Royal North Devon and Saunton are only around half an hour apart, while Trevose is roughly a two-hour drive further south-west.
South Wales: cliffs and championships
Royal Porthcawl is one of the finest links in the British Isles, having hosted The Amateur Championship, the Walker Cup and the Senior Open. Uniquely, the sea is visible from every hole.
Pennard, on the Gower Peninsula, is often called “the links in the sky”. Its fairways roll across clifftops high above Three Cliffs Bay, past the ruins of a medieval castle, with grazing animals for company. It’s quirky, spectacular and utterly unforgettable.
The two courses are under an hour apart by car, making for an easy and rewarding trip.
Road Trip Logistics & Wet Gear
Organise the boot before you leave
Four golfers’ worth of kit in one car is a game of Tetris. Get it wrong, and you’ll spend every morning unpacking half the boot to find one pair of shoes.
- Travel light on bags. Lightweight carry bags or slim cart bags take up far less space than tour-style bags. Agree on this as a group before the trip.
- Load clubs first, and lay them flat. Clubs go in first with heads alternating, then soft luggage around them. Protect headcovers and shafts from heavy bags sliding around on the road.
- Give everyone a crate or holdall for golf essentials. Shoes, gloves, balls, waterproofs and a towel in one grab-and-go bag means no rummaging in the car park.
- Keep wet kit separate. A large waterproof dry bag or a lidded plastic box for soaked waterproofs, towels and shoes stops everything else in the boot getting damp.
- Pack a car-park kit. A spare towel, a pack of wet wipes and a bin bag to sit on make changing after a wet round far more civilised.
Drying out waterproofs and shoes overnight
This is the challenge that makes or breaks a multi-day trip, especially if you’re playing 36 holes a day. Putting on cold, soggy shoes at 7am is nobody’s idea of a holiday.
Shoes
- Bring two pairs and rotate them. It’s the single most effective thing you can do.
- Remove the insoles as soon as you get in, so both the shoe and the insole can dry.
- Stuff them with newspaper and replace it after an hour or two once it’s soaked up the worst of the moisture.
- Pack a portable shoe dryer. Compact electric boot dryers are inexpensive, and they’re a game-changer on a wet trip.
- Avoid direct high heat. Leaving shoes on a hot radiator can crack leather and weaken glues. Warm and airy is better than hot.
Waterproofs
- Shake off and hang up immediately. Don’t leave jackets balled up in the boot overnight.
- Ask about a drying room. Many golf-friendly hotels and B&Bs in golf regions have one, or will happily let you use a boot room or utility area. Check when you book.
- Hang, don’t cook. As with shoes, gentle warmth works better than a hot radiator, which can damage waterproof membranes and taped seams.
- Open a window. Four golfers’ damp kit in one room creates a lot of humidity, which slows drying.
Gloves and towels
- Bring more gloves than you think you’ll need, including a pair of rain gloves.
- Pack several towels, and rotate them so there’s always a dry one in the bag.
Managing player fatigue
A road trip with 36 holes a day sounds like heaven until the third afternoon, when legs are heavy, swings are loose and tempers are short.
- Plan the schedule sensibly. Put your longest drive on a day with just one round, and don’t plan 36 holes on the day you travel.
- Share the driving. Rotate drivers, and never set off after an early tee time on too little sleep.
- Take the pressure off your body. Consider booking trolleys or buggies for second rounds, particularly on hilly courses like Pennard.
- Eat and hydrate properly. A proper lunch between rounds beats a sausage roll in the car park. Carry water and snacks in the bag.
- Five minutes before each round, and after long drives, helps prevent the stiffness that ruins day three.
- Be sensible in the bar. The designated driver for the morning should plan their evening accordingly.
The Vulnerability: What’s in Your Boot
Here’s the part of trip planning that often gets overlooked.
Add up what’s in the boot of a golf road trip car. A modern set of clubs, bag, rangefinder or GPS watch, shoes and waterproofs can easily come to £2,000 or more per player. Four golfers sharing an SUV could be driving around with upwards of £8,000 worth of equipment.
And that car will be left unattended a lot. You’ll stop at scenic coastal viewpoints, pull in at country pubs for lunch, park up at clubhouses and leave it on hotel car parks overnight. A car with golf bags visible, or a boot being loaded in a quiet car park, is exactly what opportunistic thieves look for.
A few simple habits make a big difference:
- Keep everything out of sight. Use the parcel shelf or a load cover.
- Pack the boot before you arrive, not in the car park where you’re stopping. Thieves watch for people stashing valuables.
- Park in busy, well-lit spots close to where you’ll be, ideally in view of a window.
- Bring your clubs inside overnight. Most hotels and B&Bs in golf areas are happy to store them, or let you keep them in your room.
The Home Insurance Myth
Many golfers assume that if the worst happens, their home contents insurance will cover it. Often, it won’t.
Standard home contents policies usually only cover belongings away from home if you’ve added personal possessions cover, and even then there are frequently catches. Many policies exclude items stolen from a vehicle, particularly overnight or when the car was left unattended. Others apply single-item limits or overall caps that fall well short of the value of a set of clubs, never mind the rest of your kit. Car insurance rarely does better, with cover for personal belongings often limited to a few hundred pounds.
You could easily come home from a dream trip with a claim refused and thousands of pounds to find.
The Solution: Dedicated Golf Insurance
Specialist golf insurance, such as the cover available from Sportscover Direct, is built around exactly this kind of scenario.
Dedicated policies are designed to cover your golf equipment in transit, helping protect your clubs while travelling to and from the course, not just while you’re playing. Cover can also extend to theft from an unattended vehicle, subject to the policy terms and conditions, including requirements around keeping your equipment locked securely and out of sight.
As with any insurance, it’s important to read the policy wording before you travel. Check the equipment limits against the real value of your kit, look at any single-item limits for expensive drivers or rangefinders, and confirm the conditions around vehicles, including whether overnight theft from a car is covered.
Get that sorted before you set off, and you can enjoy the post-round pub dinner the way it’s meant to be enjoyed: reliving the best shots of the day, rather than staring out of the window at the car park.
Your Road Trip Checklist
- Courses and tee times booked, with realistic driving times between them
- Accommodation confirmed, ideally with a drying room and club storage
- Lightweight bags agreed across the group to save boot space
- Two pairs of golf shoes and a portable shoe dryer
- Full waterproofs, rain gloves and plenty of towels
- Dry bag or box for wet kit
- Driving rota sorted before you leave
- Clubs brought inside every night
- Golf insurance in place, covering equipment in transit and theft from vehicles
Then all that’s left is to load up the car, pick the playlist, and hit the road.
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