Appleby Golf Club Review: My Current Favourite Course in England

Tucked into the Eden Valley on Brackenber Moor, Appleby Golf Club is the kind of place that makes you question why you ever bother with expensive, over-hyped venues. This is golf the way it was meant to be — wild, windswept, utterly honest, and completely unforgettable.

The welcome committee at Appleby — electric fence or not, they'll find a way to be in your shot.

I've played over 60 courses since taking up golf seriously in June 2024. Links, parkland, heathland — I've covered a lot of ground. But when my wife and I drove north to Appleby-in-Westmorland in Cumbria, neither of us expected to find what has become, without question, my favourite course to date. Five out of five. I don't say that lightly.

Appleby was laid out in 1903 by Open Champion Willie Fernie, who simply used the natural contours of Brackenber Moor and let the land do the talking. More than 120 years later, it still does. It has been described as 'Gleneagles in the raw' — that tells you everything you need to know.

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Old School Golf. Unapologetically.

Walking Appleby feels like stepping back 100 years. No yardage screens, no GPS carts, no fairway bunkers — not a single one on the entire course. What there is: tight moorland fairways, rough that genuinely punishes, bold natural elevation changes that demand creativity, and a wind off the Pennines that will test every club in your bag and every ounce of your course management.

Several holes play directly into or across the prevailing wind with no shelter whatsoever. Club selection becomes genuinely strategic — not just a yardage calculation but a negotiation with the landscape. And with no par 5s on the card, every hole asks a different kind of question. This is golf that rewards experience and punishes arrogance. I loved every second of it.

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Hole 5 – George Ghyll: The Knee-Knocker

If you ask me which hole I'll be thinking about for years to come, it isn't the signature hole. It's the fifth — George Ghyll. A blind tee shot onto an elevated fairway over what looks, from the tee, like a terrifying gorse-filled ravine dropping away to your right. There is a marker post. There is not much else.

The carry is around 150 yards uphill to a fairway you cannot see. Your natural instinct is to bail left — which leaves you a near-impossible pitch to a green that slopes sharply away from you. Play the right line and you're rewarded. Play scared and the course finds you out immediately. This is exactly what great golf architecture should do: get inside your head before you've taken the club back.

My wife stood on that tee, looked down into the ravine, looked at me, and said absolutely nothing. We both knew. This was the hole of the day.

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Hole 15 – The Bell Hole: Officially the Best

The official signature hole — and with good reason. The Bell Hole is a 176-yard par 3 that cracked Today's Golfer's GB&I Top 100 Finest Golf Holes in 2021, and standing on that tee you understand immediately why. This is a true test of skill, not just spectacle.

The green is concealed — you are firing at a target you cannot fully see, over Hilton Beck, with out-of-bounds lurking to punish any misjudgement. There is no hiding place, no bail-out option. You commit to a club, trust your ball flight, and wait. The teeing ground sits beside a babbling stream and could genuinely pass for the finest picnic spot in Cumbria — which only adds to the cruelty of what you're being asked to do from it.

It is everything a great par 3 should be: beautiful, demanding, memorable, and slightly terrifying. George Ghyll may have stolen my heart, but the Bell Hole is the one that will haunt my dreams.

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The Locals: Part Atmosphere, Part Hazard, Part Comedy

Incoming. There is no Rule of Golf that covers this. We checked.

Let's be clear about something: the sheep at Appleby are not a quaint backdrop. They are active participants. And occasionally, they are a genuine obstacle.

The most memorable wildlife encounter of the round — and possibly of my entire golfing life — came on one of the fairways when a pack of them came charging directly towards us down the middle of the hole. Not ambling. Not grazing. Charging. As a group. With apparent intent. Standing your ground as twenty sheep bear down on you at pace is, I can confirm, a surprisingly daunting experience. My wife found it considerably funnier than I did in the moment.

Even in the rough they hold their ground. This is their course. We are guests.

When they're not charging the fairways in formation, they operate as individual hazards of the most charming kind.

The greens themselves are protected by electric fences — the one concession to course management that keeps the putting surfaces in their immaculate condition.

But everything else is fair game. A lone sheep grazing right beside the pin, as close as the fence will allow, utterly unbothered by the flag inches away, is both a wonderful photograph and a genuine test of concentration.

This is their moor. You are the visitor. My wife declared the sheep the best playing partners we've ever had. Given some of the company I've kept on golf courses, I cannot entirely disagree.

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The Clubhouse: Warmth You Cannot Buy

The clubhouse at Appleby is everything a golf club should be. Friendly, unpretentious, genuinely welcoming to visitors. Nobody looked at us like outsiders. The kind of place where you linger after your round, replaying holes over a drink, planning the return visit before you've left the car park.

There is even a full-size snooker table should the weather turn against you. It won't feel like a consolation — it will feel like an extension of the same warm, old-fashioned hospitality the course itself delivers for 18 holes. This is the spirit of golf that governing bodies spend millions trying to recreate. At Appleby it simply exists, as it always has.

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The ChippedIn Verdict: Appleby Golf Club Review

The course itself was in exceptional condition — immaculate greens, firm fairways, everything you could ask for. Sitting up in the hills like this, Appleby seems to create its own micro-climate, sheltered enough between the fells to play beautifully even when the rest of Cumbria is underwater. That it drains freely year-round on its sandstone bedrock only adds to its remarkable playability.

Appleby Golf Club is one of those rare places that reminds you why you fell in love with this game. The wind, the sheep charging down the fairway, the moorland views, the blind tee shot on George Ghyll that turns your legs to jelly, the Bell Hole par 3 that GB&I has voted into its all-time top 100. My wife and I left already planning our return.

I have played over 60 courses. This was, without a shadow of a doubt, my most memorable round of golf to date. I cannot wait to go back.

If you love golf rather than just the scorecard, get yourself to Appleby. It is a bucket list course hiding in plain sight off the A66 in the Northern Pennines. Completely, utterly, flawlessly five out of five.

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COURSE DETAILS

📍 Appleby Golf Club, Brackenber Moor, Appleby-in-Westmorland, Cumbria CA16 6LP

🏌️ 18 holes | Moorland | Par 68 | 5,993 yards | SSS 70

🏆 Ranked 108th in England, 3rd in Cumbria

⭐ 15th (Bell Hole) — Today's Golfer GB&I Top 100 Finest Holes 2021

💷 Midweek from £27 per round — extraordinary value

🐑 Shared with sheep. They will not move. You go around them.

💨 Wind can be brutal — club up, check the forecast, embrace it

🚗 5 mins from Junction 40, M6 — no excuses not to go

⭐ ChippedIn Rating: 5/5 — Bucket List

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Have you played Appleby? Tell us about your experience in the comments — and if you have a hidden gem course we should visit next, drop it below. ChippedIn is always looking for the next great round.

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