Sunningdale’s New Course is an athletic challenge, known to be a tougher and more rounded test of golf than the Old Course. This superb driving course, featuring a less encroaching treeline than on the Old Course, although thick heather calls for accuracy and full commitment on every shot.
For many years Jack Nicklaus held the course record with a 66, which was a testament to the technical test of the New Course. In qualifying for the 2009 Open, Graeme Storm shot an impressive 8 under (62) to lead the Final Qualifiers.
Sunningdale Golf Club features with two championship courses, the Old & New Courses each with individual charm. Laid over heathland, the courses wind their way intricately through heather, gorse and pine.
The Old Course features a wide variety of holes, perfectly illustrated by the opening four; a reachable par five, a demanding par four, a driveable par four and a fantastic uphill par three. The course continues to perfectly unravel to present something different with each turn.
Since opening in 1901 Sunningdale’s Old Course has hosted countless top flight events including the inaugural Professional Matchplay Championship in 1903, The Women’s British Open, The Walker Cup and of course The Open’s first sectional qualifying in 1926 when Bobby Jones shot an “incredible and indecent” 66!
Swinley Forest is unique, an impressive heathland course, unpretentiousness with none of the glamour of its near neighbours, Sunningdale and Wentworth.
Quoted in Nicholas Courtney’s book to celebrate the Club’s 2009 Centenary, it is said that ‘members of The Berkshire Golf Club are all gentlemen and love to play golf; all the Sunningdale members love to play golf but not all are gentlemen and all the Swinley members are gentlemen but don’t give a fig whether they play golf or not!’.
The fact that there are no obligatory handicaps and members choose what they play off says something of the membership’s attitude to life.
Harry Colt, the great golf course architect and Secretary at Sunningdale at the time, was commissioned to design Swinley. He subsequently became its Secretary, it being reported that he was ‘no easy man to serve’ but scrupulously fair and cared deeply for his staff’s welfare.
He tramped the dense woodlands avoiding the wetlands at the centre of the course and cut down some 14,000 pine trees to create vistas known as his ‘landscape aspect’ across the naturally sandy based draining fairways that are lined with trees but seldom come into play. They allow a width with many choices to be made between safety and heroism across the 179 acres.
You don’t get really tight turf on the predominantly fescue fairways at Swinley, as perhaps the members prefer the ease of the ball sitting up with some springiness. The greens are typical Colt, not a straight putt to be found but without the extreme undulations to be found on many modern target courses.
The seclusion at Swinley is said to be down to the majority of the course being on Crown Commission land and Lord Derby, who effectively created and ran the Club for his friends, being successful in not encouraging development on the periphery of the course.
There are also no large roads nearby – offering an enchanting atmosphere to test your game against the challenging Par 68 on this wonderful course.
The Blue Course is known as the shorter and more conventional of The Berkshire courses. Although sharing the same hazards as the Red Course, the Blue Couse plays over much flatter ground.
Unusually the Blue Course starts with a par 3, instantly confronting challengers with a plateau green guarded by a valley of heather.
The front 9 otherwise offers some birdie opportunities, with 2 par 5s and 5 short par 4s. The back 9 proves more difficult with a string of challenging par 4s towards the finish.
The Blue Course may not rank as highly as the Red, however members will often say that it is the tougher of the two courses to score on.
Walton Heath is one of the world’s most highly regarded golf clubs, famous for its rich golfing and political history and the quality of its two exceptionally challenging heathland layouts, described by Jack Nicklaus as “wonderfully pure.”
Both courses feature in the UK and Ireland’s Top 50 rankings. The Old has earned its place in the World’s Top 100 every year since the inception of the rankings in 1938.
The Club was founded in 1903. Walton’s first Captain happened also to be King Edward VIII. The first Professional, James Braid, won five Opens and stayed for some forty-five years. Winston Churchill played regularly at Walton Heath. The Club hosted the European Open in the seventies and eighties, the Ryder Cup in 1981, the British Ladies Amateur in 2000, the Senior Open in 2011 and The British Masters in 2018.
The Old Course has many demands, but its greater length means that more “Scottish shots” are likely to be needed in this Surrey haven. When you do reach the greens, they are large, hard, fast, and true.
The fairways offer a texture that only geography, maturity and professional care can deliver deep, firm, springy, and hallowed from the giant footsteps that went before.
Tom Weiskopf reckons the closing sequence is as good as any. It starts at the 13th with a strong 548-yard Par-5F curving to the right, cleverly bunkered on the way to a green that demands close and respectful attention.
If you love golf with its endless frustrations and rewards, you will love the Old Course at Walton Heath, for it is the epitome of golf on barely tamed heathland, and requiring finesse and strength in equal measure.
