Why Surrey, England should be on your radar for golf
Walton Heath Golf Club - Old Course
Golf has spread across the world over the last 150 years—from a standing start in Scotland to a huge boom that kicked off in the 1880s across current and former British colonies.
The English appetite for golf around the turn of the last century is difficult to appreciate in a modern context. In 1880 there were a dozen courses in England. 30 years later, they were approaching 1000.
While quantity doesn’t equal quality, this boom coincided with the professionalization of golf course architecture. Many of the great links in Scotland were predominantly laid out by nature, and titans of the game like Old Tom Morris and Willie Park largely chose a routing and green sites without disturbing very much land.
From the 1890s onward, architects like Harry Colt, Donald Ross, and CB Macdonald (American, but influenced by his time in St Andrews in the 1870s) laid out golf courses still considered some of the best and most important in the world, bringing on what is considered the golden age of golf course architecture.
Sunningdale Golf Club - Old Course
The heathlands of Surrey, England is one of the best and densest golf regions in the world, yet for some reason, it’s not usually on the tip of even the most ardent golf travellers’ tongues. Sunningdale, Walton Heath, Swinley Forest, St George’s Hill, Woking, Berkshire, and many more are all within less than an hour’s drive of each other, and while many people will recognize these names, they do not seem to settle in people’s brains as being a stone’s throw from one another.
These top heathland golf courses share the characteristic springy, sandy soil of a links course without being next to the ocean, and are typically framed by a combination of heather and forest. This creates a happy medium for the North American golfer: a course that is more reminiscent of the types of layouts we see on this side of the Atlantic, but with firm turf that gives you the option of playing the ball through the air or along the ground.
“Perdu” at The Addington is par 3 built around a green site that was rediscovered during course renovation work.
A trip to Surrey is a great option for someone who has already visited Scotland or Ireland (or both) and is looking for a slightly below the radar next destination with courses that punch way above their weight. It’s also a huge plus for anyone travelling with less keen golfers (or non-golfers) in their group that you are an hour from London, and staying in the city is even feasible if you don’t mind ~1 hour drives to golf.
Like almost all clubs in the British Isles, courses in this part of the world are open to the public, although they tend to be more restrictive on weekends than their Scottish counterparts due to their proximity to London and their members’ playing predominantly weekend rounds.
I’m counting down the days until I can get back to this part of the world and spend a day at Sunningdale playing the Old and New courses, visit Walton Heath
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