A Golf Trip to the Sefton Coast from Manchester: Planning It Properly

The Sefton Coast gets a lot of visitors from Manchester and the surrounding area. With good reason: you have five championship links courses and one excellent lower-tier links within about an hour of the city centre, and the full Royal Birkdale Open Championship experience in July 2026. Here's how to plan the trip without making the mistakes most people make on their first run.

Getting there

By train: Manchester Victoria direct to Southport, Northern Rail. Journey time approximately 55 minutes to 1 hour 10, depending on service. Southport station is about 15 minutes by taxi from the main courses in Birkdale and Ainsdale. For Hillside, Royal Birkdale and S&A, the Birkdale station stop (one stop south of Southport) is closer: change at Southport and take Merseyrail one stop.

By car: M60 to M61 to M58 into Skelmersdale, then A570 into Southport. Allow an hour from Manchester city centre on a normal weekday morning, closer to 90 minutes on a Friday afternoon or summer weekend. There's no clever alternative: the roads around Southport are what they are. If you're playing multiple courses over multiple days, a car makes sense. For a one-course day trip, the train is more relaxing and removes the problem of finding parking near whichever course you're at.

The one-day version

A single day from Manchester is realistic. Leave Manchester Victoria on the 7am train, arrive Southport around 8am, taxi to Southport & Ainsdale for a 9am tee time. Eighteen holes takes about 4 hours with a reasonable pace of play. Lunch in the clubhouse (included in the S&A green fee). Train back from Southport, home by 5pm. That's a full day of championship links golf for around £80–£100 all in including travel: better value than most of the golf on offer within an hour of Manchester.

The two-day itinerary

Two days opens up the best combination: Day 1 at Southport & Ainsdale (morning) and Southport Old Links (afternoon if you have the legs for it). Day 2 at Hillside. That's three rounds of links golf covering the full range from affordable-and-accessible to one of the best courses in England.

Stay in Birkdale village if you can: it's five minutes from both Hillside and S&A, has decent restaurants and pubs, and during Open week in July it's the base that makes everything simple. The Bold Hotel on Lord Street in Southport is the town's best option if you want a proper hotel. For self-catering, Airbnb in the Birkdale area is reliable.

The three-day version: adding Royal Birkdale

A three-day trip justifies booking Royal Birkdale. The logic: you play two days on the other courses first, get your links legs under you, understand what conditions are like, and then go to Birkdale on Day 3 when you're not a complete passenger. A 24-handicapper playing Birkdale cold off an inland parkland background is not going to enjoy it the way someone who's spent two days on genuine links turf will. Book S&A, Hillside, Birkdale in that order.

Coming for The Open 2026

Manchester is the natural base for a lot of Open week visitors: train to Liverpool, cross to Liverpool Central, then Merseyrail to Birkdale in about 80 minutes door-to-door from Manchester. Alternatively, stay in the Southport/Formby area for the week and use Merseyrail daily. Formby is the better accommodation option at this stage: Southport is largely booked for Open week. From Formby station to Birkdale is four minutes on the train.