What golf courses in the United Kingdom allow dogs on the course? A simple enough question, but a fine example of how primitive search facilities remain on the Internet.

Google doesn’t work for a number of reasons…

• Symantec Ambiguity – If you use Google search looking for “dog” and “golf courses”, then you just get countless listing of courses with “dog-legs”. If you are more specific with phrases like “dogs welcome” or “dogs allowed”, then you have to think of all the different ways that it could be expressed.
• Proximity Ambiguity – Searching becomes extra complicated when the search engine gets confused by the many holiday breaks and vacation cottages that are dog-friendly and are also next to or part of a golf course. The hotel might allow them, but not the golf course.
• Website Dependency – The basic challenge is that 90% of the clubs simply do not indicate their dog policy on their website. Nearly all of my listings came as the result of someone mentioning the club (in forum or blog post or other research) and me following up with a direct query to the course.

In conducting a bit of research for our own doggie golf interests, I decided to invest in a bit of curation to this question to help other canine caring fairway fans enjoy both their loves at the same time. Hopefully, DogGolf can help links-loving dog owners…

• Nearby – The number one question, as stated at top, is “where can we all go play a round with our best friends?”
• Doggie Holiday – It’s not just the weekend outings, but also potential vacation breaks where we might want to plot our destination based on somewhere we can hit the greens all together.
• Tips – I have been surprised how little information there is about Dog Golf on the web, despite the fact that it is the intersection of two great loves for many people. I will provide a range of tips and reviews in the blog to help make dog golfing that much more easy and enjoyable.

DogGolf.info has a number of features…

• Course Finder – The heart of the site is the comprehensive, interactive database of dog-friendly courses in the UK, which you can filter by characteristics like green fees, lead requirements, handicap certificate requirements, advance notification requirements, etc.
• Course Profiles – Each dog-friendly course has its own snapshot profile with the key details about its dog policy. The profiles don’t go into great depth about the courses, because the course websites (the profiles include a link to them) are the best places for the more up-to-date and comprehensive details about them.
• Course Map – Just to make the proximity planning a bit easier and visual, I have loaded the courses into a shared Google custom map so you can peruse nearby possibilities geographically.
• Blog – The blog will feature three primary topics: (a) information about the website, (b) reviews of dog friendly courses, and (c) various titbits, tips and treats for dog-walking golfers.
• Ask Grace – Grace is our very own 9-year old Hungarian Vizsla. She is very eager to please and so will be happy to answer all your dog questions from her canine perspective.

Feel free to contact us with any ideas, suggestions, questions, updates or corrections.
Less rough, more ruff!