How To Become A Member At Royal St George's Golf Club

How do you become a member of the 149th Open Championship venue?

How To Become A Member At Royal St George's Golf Club

This year's Open Championship venue Royal St George's is one of the UK's most prestigious golf clubs, having now hosted the world's oldest golf Major on 15 occasions.

The Kent links was the first club outside of Scotland to host an Open and has crowned champions including JH Taylor, Harry Vardon, Walter Hagen, Henry Cotton, Bobby Locke, Sandy Lyle and Greg Norman.

Royal St George's ranks 11th in Golf Monthly's latest UK and Ireland course rankings and is fourth in England behind Royal Birkdale and both courses at Sunningdale.

So, how do you become a member?

As you may expect, membership is difficult to come by with the club being extremely prestigious and private.

"Candidates must be proposed and seconded by existing members and then, subject to the memberships’, support and the Committees’ agreement, are elected as vacancies arise," Royal St George's told Golf Monthly.

This makes it sound invite-only, meaning that you cannot simply fill out a membership application without at least two current members proposing you.

We would also imagine that the waiting list is extremely long due to the club's prestige and the golf boom seen since the pandemic.

All of this doesn't mean that you can't play the course - you can.

Whilst it is a private club, it is also very welcoming to visitors who can play the course as long as they have a handicap of 18 or less.

Summer green fees are £250 and winter fees are £160.

These fees are lower than usual due to mats being in operation in certain parts of the fairway prior to The Open and could well rise following Open week.

To summarise, Royal St George's is an extremely private club but can be played by visitors - just like every other Open venue.