An ode to the dormy house

There’s something about staying in a golf club dormy house that really does it for me, especially out of season for some strange reason. I’ve been racking my brains to pinpoint what perhaps triggered this enduring appeal, and believe my first ever dormy house experience was at this year’s Open Championship venue, Royal St George’s in Kent, many years ago on a Golf Monthly winter away day.

The dormy rooms there are primarily for the use of members and their guests, as are the ones 50 miles south-west down the coast at Rye, but the vast majority are open to all, including those at Royal Lytham & St Annes, where I have also been fortunate enough to stay on a couple of occasions.

However, when I say ‘vast majority’, we are talking about the vast majority of a relatively small number, for there is still,