Royal St George's

Royal St George's Golf Club, located in Sandwich, Kent, is one of England's premier golf courses. RSG is commonly regarded as a links golf masterpiece, laid out on some of the best golfing land in England. It is known for steeply sloping fairways and its potential for unfriendly bounces. RSG is commonly regarded as a ballstrikers' golf course where a pure long game is a pre-requisite to low scoring.

RSG was established in 1887 and originally designed by Dr Laidlaw Purves, who was also the club's first captain.

A very smart club has just been formed at Sandwich, where the "links" are so good as to be nearly equal to those of St. Andrews. This new St. George's Club of Sandwich is an offshoot of the Royal Wimbledon Club, many of the best golfers of which have joined the St. George's Club. The "links" at Sandwich were "discovered" by a well-known and keen golfer, Dr. Laidlaw Purves, who had little difficulty in organising the new club, and securing a lease of the links, which is thus the private property of the club—a great point. The St. George's Club already numbers about 200 members, many of whom are enthusiastic golfers, and find it very pleasant to run down from town to the breezy links of Sandwich for a few day's play.

By 2021 RSG had hosted The Open Championship 15 times, most recently crowning Colin Morikawa as its champion golfer of the year 2021.

The club and course has a rich championship history and remains a traditional members club with a royal heritage. It was granted its royal prefix by King Edvard VII in 1903 and maintains a connection with the English "well-to-do" by hosting the prestigous, annual Halford Hewitt Cup; the world's most famous public schools' golf tournament.

Royal St George's place in the hierarchy of English golf has been debated for over one hundred years, as evidenced by the comments of the original golf writer, Bernard Darwin.

There is always something stirring in a roll of illustrious names, and for the mere sensual pleasure of writing them I set them down in order at the beginning of the chapter—Sandwich, Deal, Prince’s, Littlestone, and Rye, in the counties of Kent and Sussex. Each of the five has devoted adherents who will maintain its merits against the world in heated argument, but there can be little doubt which has the right to come first. It would be showing a sad disrespect to golfing history, very recent history though it be, to begin otherwise than with the links of the Royal St. George’s Golf Club at Sandwich.