The Member's Guest Rate Index

This is the most important limit on the figures. A club only enters the index once it has a guest rate, so clubs that charge a guest the same as a visitor, or decline to give a figure, are absent. 62 clubs are on record without one, and 19 have been set aside altogether. The saving quoted here is therefore the saving among clubs that offer one, which is not the same as the saving across British golf.

It is the clubs in our directory: ones we have rung, ones our members belong to, and ones that publish enough to be read accurately. Several of the most expensive venues in the country are missing because they publish no readable fee at all. Treat it as the largest collection of guest rates we know of rather than a census.

184 of the 263 clubs publish a separate weekday and weekend guest rate; the rest charge one rate or quote only one. Where a club gives a single figure, that figure is used on both sides of the comparison, so a weekday rate is never set against a weekend fee to widen the gap.

Summer figures are stored throughout, so winter rates at seasonal clubs will read lower than what is here. Clubs also raise fees in spring, generally without notice, which is why each club’s page carries the date its fee was last checked.

Nearly every club requires the member to play in the group. Many cap how often the same guest can be signed in, restrict weekend mornings, or limit the party size. The rate is the price, not the whole arrangement.

A visitor fee counts only when a source and a date are on record for it. 263 clubs meet that test, and the comparisons here are drawn from the 263 that also have a guest rate. Clubs missing either figure appear in the table without a comparison rather than with an estimated one.

Headline figures are medians, because a handful of £400 visitor fees drag an average somewhere no golfer recognises. Both are given so the two can be compared.