Great Places in Golf - Sunningdale Golf Club

The Senior British Open is being contested this week on the Old Course at Sunningdale....and while the event will not garner headlines, Sunningdale is a very special place.  Television coverage is on ESPN from 12:00-2:00 each day, and it's well worth your time to see this storied venue.

The Old Course was opened in 1900 and was designed by Willie Park, Jr., known best in our parts for his design of The Maidstone Club. Here's a brief backgrounder on him from the club's website:

Willie Park Jnr was born in 1864. His father was a professional golfer, winning the first

Open Championship in 1860, and running a successful club and ball making business in Musselburgh, East Lothian. The family competed on equal footing with the Morris family of St Andrews. 

Park Jnr learned golf traditionally, caddying and working with his father. He competed in stake matches and tournaments, winning the Open in 1887 and 1889, but gravitated towards the business side of golf, writing two books, “The Game of Golf”, recently republished, and “The Art of Putting”, a strong feature of his game. In the 1890s he designed golf courses in Scotland, but his first well known brief was Sunningdale, now known as the Old course, followed almost simultaneously by Huntercombe.

And that snippet doesn't even mention his Uncle Mungo... But the Park family being in the equipment business is of interest here, because when Sunningdale was built the golf world was about to experience a seismic shock with the introduction of the Haskell ball.

Here are Ran Morrisset's thoughts at Golf Club Atlas:

The gutta percha ball was in use when Park built the course but the Haskell emerged a scant two years later. The game and what constituted good golf was changing, and doing so rapidly. At one time blind one shotters were popular, seen from Deal and Sandwich to Aberdovey and here at Park’s first three one shot holes which featured greens located in a bowl (the fourth), behind a fold (the eighth) and a beyond a hill (the thirteenth). As the new century dawned, such holes lost their standing. Bernard Darwin was savagely critical of Park’s one shotters. While Park’s one shotters were mostly rooted in the 19th century, the course was otherwise long and stylish. Might Park have done things differently if he had designed Sunningdale with the Haskell in mind? That’s a difficult question and the ability to answer it in absolutes has been lost with time. However, it is worth noting that the Park family business was golf equipment and perhaps they had a inkling of what would soon emerge. Such knowledge would account for Park’s muscular routing, which clearly made allowances for the anticipated improvements in equipment.

Interesting that the bulk of the routing was "muscular", but the short holes were lacking.  In any event, the club very quickly enjoyed great good fortune with this:

By pure coincidence, the same year that the Haskell appeared, so too did Harry Colt.

Sunningdale had sent out requests for a Club Secretary and Colt was among the more than 400 applicants. He assumed the post in 1901. At first he was largely an administrator and player but his services as a golf architect grew during the first decade of the twentieth century. His early gems include Le Touquet, Swinley Forest and St. George’s Hill and by 1913 he had made his mark in North America at mighty Pine Valley and the charming Toronto Golf Club. Still, Park was ‘the man’ at the start of the century and Colt prudently inched his way along in the early years. As his talent blossomed, Colt’s voice became louder and it was soon revealed that his eye for architecture was peerless.

That would be the Henry Shapland "Harry" Colt that gave us Portrush, Muirfield and County Down, just to throw out a few names.... James Sheridan, the legendary caddie master at Sunningdale wrote of Harry as follows:

Mr. H.S. Colt, the secretary, was no easy man to serve. I was astounded at first by the way he seemed to frighten most of the staff and thought this wouldn’t do for me. We had a terrible row when one of the caddies had trouble with a member. “I don’t care what happened, Sheridan,’ he said as I tried to explain. ‘The member is always right.’ ‘Wrong is no man’s right,’ I replied which scarcely poured oil on the troubled waters. I very soon realised what a great and wonderful man he was and, as the years passed, we both achieved a fine regard for each other. Certainly, the secretary had a fierce kick in him, but I prefer men like that. The others desert you when the wind blows.

Colt left his position in 1913 to pursue his architectural career, but remained a member and continued to serve on its greens committee.  He was hired to build the New Course that opened in 1923, which is only slightly less memorable than the original.  Both course wind beautifully through the firs, sand and heather, as if they'd been there forever.

While the commentators yesterday called it a parkland course, I'd suggest that heathland is the more appropriate term.  As Ran notes, there are great similarities ti links to be found:

Sunningdale was at the forefront of bringing meaningful golf inland where it could play a vital role in one’s weekly life. Links golf defined the character of the game in 1899 when Willie Park Jr. began routing the course for the brothers Roberts. Park was surely impressed with Sunningdale’s convoluted land movement, which simulated some of the conundrums posed by links land. The Scot Park did his part by concocting drives over the crests of hills, placing bunkers in the middle of fairways, tilting greens away, and building some massive putting surfaces (the tenth alone was nearly 15,000 square feet).

It's a sandy substrate so it's logical that it would share the best playing characteristics of a links.  It has a very different look to it, and while less windy than a seaside locale, the winds tend to swirl through the densely wooded property in unpredictable fashion.  

Lett's look at some photos, shall we, to demonstrate what a spectacularly beautiful place this is.  First one from Golf Club Atlas of an educational bent, with Ran's caption:

There is golf history and then there is the history of civilization. England plays a lead role in both. Churchill explains that the mounds along the first ‘… in old maps are referred to as “tumuli”, Latin for tombs. During the construction of the Old course a collection of Anglo Saxon urns were uncovered full of skeletal remains, and these are in a museum in nearby Reading. I saw a photo somewhere of these urns being dug up, and the burial place seemed to be very similar in appearance to the tumuli.’

Such tumuli are everywhere on the property...

Your humble blogger teeing off on No. 10 on The Old.

The bunkering is quite spectacular, often surrounded by heather.

The finishing stretch of holes is quite spectacular, playing mostly uphill towards the iconic clubhouse and massive oak tree from whence the club's logo originates.  

The GCA review linked above also has many wonderful photos.

While Sunningdale has hosted its share of big time events, the most famous round of golf there took place in Open Championship Qualifying in 1926:

Yes, much changed on the Old Course from its opening in 1899 until the magical year of 1926 but the course that we enjoy today is basically what Bobby Jones confronted when he carded that perfect 66 composed of only 3s and 4s. Bernard Darwin called it‘incredible and indecent.’ On account of indifferent putting, O.B. Keeler noted that Jones ‘… had no luck at all, and needed none.’Part of that round’s marvel was how many greens Jones hit from 180 to 225 yards away, as many as ten. He never missed even with hickories! Jones (with Keeler) reminisced in Down the Fairway, ‘In my 36 holes there, in the qualifying rounds, I used a mashie twice and a mashie niblick once, for approach shots. The others were good bangs with the irons, or a spoon, or occasionally a brassie. It’s that kind of course.’

And while we all acknowledge a tendency to enjoy tracks on which we play well, here is the aforementioned Bobby Jones' assessment of Sunningdale:

‘It’s a wonderful course, Sunningdale and I wish I could carry it about with me. I wanted to bring it back home…’

What he said!  And thanks to loyal UL reader Mark W. who arranged my 2010 outing there and don't miss this video of the welcome mat for dogs there.