Is This The Greatest Day In Golf Travel?

Forbes

3 days ago

Yes, you can play three famous Bitish Open courses, all classic links, in one great day.
Casual runners aspire to complete a marathon. Recreational cyclists often undertake a 'Century,' or 100-mile ride, for charity. But to up the ante in their sport, golfers typically just look to play a better, more historic, more famous course, rather than go longer or bigger. But now, thanks to the Hagen 54, they can do both—in one long, great day. In fact, playing three Open Championship (aka British Open) venues without an overnight break may just be the greatest day in golf travel.
Last Thursday, one week after the world's best golfers teed it up in the Open at Royal Portrush, we saw the debut of the Hagen 54, a one-of-a-kind golf event that has been over a century in the making.
The 'Father of professional golf,' Walter Hagen was the Jack Nicklaus or Tiger Woods of his time, before Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods, and is credited with being the one to grow the game in America and really put golf on the map. His 11 Majors titles remains third only to those other two guys, and he amassed 44 PGA Tour wins and was Ryder Cup captain a record six times. There is always going to be debate about who is the sport's GOAT, but Hagen is always in the discussion, and with a doubt, one of the very, very best and highest profile golfers to ever live.
British Open venue Royal Cinque Ports is a real deal seaside links—and one of the Top 100 Courses in ... More the World.
As he recounted in his memoir, The Walter Hagen Story, his preparation for the 1920 Open was anything but routine. 'Anyone who knows the coastal links in Kent, south-east of London, will remember there are three links, adjoining each other. Deal, the first, Sandwich directly east, known as the Royal St. George's, then a little south of Sandwich and east lies Prince's links. While we were in London for the 1920 British Open, Jim Barnes and I started one morning to play the three links as if they were one. After playing eleven holes on the Deal course, we hopped a fence over to Sandwich and played ten holes there, crossed to Prince's links and completed all the holes there, coming back to the original starting place. We finished the remainder of the holes on the Sandwich and Deal layouts, ending up on the eighteenth at Deal. Scores? I've forgotten. We weren't trying to break any records. We were just lucky to go that far. We did it for fun.'
Many courses in the UK go by both their place name and formal name, such as Sandwich/Royal St. George's, Hoylake/Royal Liverpool, and what he calls Deal is more widely known as Royal Cinque Ports.
Right next door is the 27-hole links of Princes Golf Club, another historic British Open venue.
History? Royal St. George's was the first course outside Scotland to host the Open, in 1894, and since then, 15 times. Royal Cinque Ports has done it twice (ironically, two other scheduled events were moved to its neighbor, Royal St George's, due to abnormally high tide flooding, so the history should be 13 and 4). Princes Golf Club (Hagen got it wrong, no apostrophe) has held the Open once, but considering there have only been 14 courses used for golf's oldest Major, and several of those have been removed from consideration (usually for logistic reasons such as limited room for hospitality or road infrastructure), it's still a really, really big deal. By comparison, the much younger US Open has been held on 52 different courses.
Princes hosted the 1932 Open in which American great Gene Sarazen debuted his new invention, the sand wedge, for the first time, another turning point in the history of the game. Given the scary pot bunkers and sandy scrapes that make links golf so special, the tool came in very handy, and Sarazen set a new Open record of 283 here. A big bunker next to the final green, with walls so steep they need railroad ties to hold it up, is now memorialized as the famous Sarazen bunker, and in the Fifties the course was expanded to its current 27-hole size, so you can play here a couple of days in arow with a different mix of holes.
How often do you get to play your 49th hole of the day?
Royal St. Georges is currently ranked 20th in the world by Golf Digest, and Royal Cinque Ports 79th, and both are also in Golf Magazine's Top 100. But having played Royal Cinque Ports twice, as well as many others on the list, it is short-changed, and I guarantee you it is better than many (at least 10) courses ranked higher.
So, in the footsteps of Hagen, this walking-only event plays all 54-holes of all three Open Championship courses, which happen to sit conveniently next to one another, in a single day, in the original order Hagen played them, hopscotching between courses (you no longer have to jump the fence, there's a gate). I partook of this fun, even though I had never walked more than 36 (many times) or played more than 45 (with cart). The long walk (around 21 miles and 43,500 steps) was easier than anticipated as it's fairly flat, but the fun factor was greater than I could have expected. There was a great opening reception, great closing dinner, food and drink stops all throughout the three layouts, and a feel-good attitude that can be hard to find in the sometimes stuffy world of old school historic golf clubs.
Skip the Hedgehog, the Hagen 54 mascot, on draft Guinness alongside champagne at the opening ... More reception.
Fun, friendliness and good humor ruled the day, and the organizers (the three clubs working together to boost local tourism) nailed every detail. They even created a special logo for the event, a Hedgehog named Skip, derived from the Old English for Hagen's nickname, the Haig, which means hedgehog. Every participant was given Skip logo gear, and they even had custom brewed Skip beers, lager and IPA, out on coolers along the course. I cannot speak for the other groups but our foursome debated the proposition of a beer consumption/lost ball ratio as a secondary challenge to simply finishing.
At the opening ceremony one of the officiants stated that this was the only opportunity to play three Open venues in a single day without a helicopter, but I would posit that even unrestrained funding would make that difficult, especially since weather in the UK often grounds choppers, and most of the rother spots where three Open venues are in close proximity are also the most difficult tee times in golf to obtain. The chance of getting three coordinated tee times at three Open courses, playing each in the perfect time and then getting to the next is close to zero. Here you simply step out a gate.
So that's the deal, or Deal. You get to play three exceptional links courses that are all pilgrimage worthy, and three of the 14 Open venues, in one day, with camaraderie, fun and lots of food and drink included. Obviously, being able to walk three rounds is a pre-requisite but it's not as hard as it sounds, and push carts (trolleys) are provided, with the option for caddies. The toughest logistics are that there just is not that much lodging in the region, and absolutely the marquee choice is the Lodge at Princes Golf Club, which is the only full-service golf resort in the area, with rooms for about 70-plus people (it's where Collin Morikawa stayed when he won the 2021 Open at Royal St. Georges). They also have great food (do not miss the exceptional sausage rolls), great hospitality and you can walk out the door and onto the course. I went a day early and played a preview/practice round on Princes, a great links course, and especially with 27-holes it is relatively easy to book in for extra golf before or after the big day.
The Lodge at Princes Golf Club
There are also some Spartan dorm style rooms in the Royal St. Georges clubhouse, but many people stay in a hotel or pub room in nearby Sandwich, an extremely well-preserved medieval town. Deal is a bit larger than Sandwich and just a couple of miles further. If you have time you can also try to get back out on St. Georges, Cinq Ports or nearby Rye, another acclaimed links.
The inaugural event was such a success that a few groups immediately re-upped for 2026, as bookings opened just after we finished. It will undoubtedly sell out, so if you are interested I would not waste a lot of time, though there is always 2027 and beyond. The 2026 fee is £995 per person for the golf, two dinners, breakfast, and all the extras, like shirts and gifts, and food and drinks during the round. If you were playing the three courses on your own, it would cost at least £885 for greens fees, so it's a bit of a bargain. Caddies are available at your discretion, and lodging is extra.
Collin Morikawa celebrates after winning the most recent Open played here, the 149th at Royal St ... More George's in 2021. (Photo by Warren Little/R&A/R&A via Getty Images)
Sandwich is linked by high-speed rail to London in just over an hour, and connects via the Heathrow Express, though it's tough with clubs and luggage. Coming from Gatwick is physically closer but there are more flights to Heathrow, a 2-hour drive with no traffic. Most people book private van transfers. If you want to build out a bigger golf trip, it's entirely possible to combine with the many great courses of Liverpool, including another three Open venues and several Ryder Cup hosts, which I recently wrote about here at Forbes, or the great heathland courses outside London, such as Walton Heath and Sunningdale. But the big day is the main event, and as Hagen said, 'We were just lucky to go that far. We did it for fun.'