ENHANCING A CLASSIC
Rob Smith looks at the restoration of one of his favourite Top 100 courses, the heathland layout at Worplesdon…
One of golf’s great holy trinities is the three Ws; West Hill, Woking and Worplesdon. These glorious, timeless Surrey courses are extremely close neighbours in an area that is richly adorned with top-quality golf. Their furthest extremities are less than two miles apart, but they are nonetheless quite different from one another. It is also a matter of endless debate as to which is the best, with plenty of golfers regularly changing their mind. For the record, positioned at 61, Worplesdon is the highest-ranked of the three in Golf Monthly’s UK & Ireland Top 100. The course dates back to 1908 and was a collaboration between two great architects, one not so well known and the other a household name. The
layout and routing is the work of JF Abercromby, and this was his first foray into design. His career focused on quality rather than quantity, with later achievements including The Addington and Coombe Hill, also in Surrey, and delightful Knole Park in Kent. As this was his debut, he was assisted by the legendary Willie Park Jnr, a prodigious architect whose impressive talents also included winning Open Championships and club design. Here, Park was specifically responsible for the bunkers and greens.
The course opens with a four-hole loop over gently undulating ground that returns to the charming, pavilion-style clubhouse. Three medium-length par 4s ease you into the round before a lovely, slightly elevated short hole to a green protected by two bunkers and framed by grassy knolls. The front nine continues with three really strong two-shotters punctuated by the reachable par-5 6th and testing par-3 7th.
Many consider the short 10th to be the signature hole. This is mainly due to its setting, with the green situated across a beautiful pond. Four very fine holes await on the other side of the road; back-to-back par 5s followed
by the lovely par-3 13th and the testing SI1 14th. A tempting par 5, the final short hole and two more strong but fair par 4s conclude a round of enormous character and variety.
The need for restoration
At just about any golf club, the playing characteristics of its course will change over time. It’s not merely the heathland, but often other original design features are lost. There are various reasons for this. With regard to heather, it might be that committees have decided the more demanding playing characteristics of heathland golf are not for them. This will be all the more likely where the heather has become thicker and more widespread. Also, advances in club technology have allowed golfers to reach areas they hadn’t previously been able to. In each of these cases, the heather has become an enemy, with the result that it was often removed or heavily cut back.
Also at many clubs, tree planting programmes were introduced – with the best of intentions, but not always implemented in the right places or quantities. Bunkers have also been lost or abandoned, and this may well be due to maintenance costs or the whim of a particular committee. To a lesser or greater extent, elements of all of these things had made an appearance at Worplesdon.
Four years ago, the club began an extensive programme of subtle but substantial remedial refinements. These were made in order to restore the original design principles at the same time as catering for modern tastes and equipment. Architect Tim Lobb, a former partner of five-time Open Champion Peter Thomson, was enlisted to help.
Prior to his arrival, work had been started on tree clearance, something that is vital for the health of playing surfaces and promoting better woodland, as well as preserving and restoring playing lines. The bunker and heather project itself took three years, with six holes worked on each winter. Using historical documents and photos, Lobb was able to see how things had been in the early days at a time when there were very few trees on the course. The aim was to restore as much as was practical, and to really make the bunkers sit up and be noticed. There was also a big push to restore the heathland feel and to put small pockets of heather in sensible places where they would make an impact, including on the top of all the fairway bunkers.
Tim is pleased with the result of all this work, but also modest on its impact. “We haven’t done anything revolutionary here,” he said. “Hopefully we’ve got it to somewhere that the original designers would be very pleased with and very proud of. We’ve tried to keep those playing lines, the widths and the general appearance. If no one realised we had done some design work here, that would almost be a compliment!” Some of this work will take time to bed in. For example, it usually requires around three years for the heather to take properly on top of the bunkers.
High praise
The end result is that all 70 bunkers have been renovated to reflect a classic heathland look. In addition, two acres of heather have been transplanted. Bunkers on four holes – the 1st, 6th, 11th and 15th – were moved in order to be in the most
relevant position to accommodate modern-day golf. Elsewhere, two bunkers that had fallen out of use on the 5th were reinstated, and throughout the course, every bunker was emptied, drained, re-shaped and then lined with rubber crumb before being re-filled.
One of the most obvious refurbishments is the reintroduction of the horseshoe bunker around the front of the par-3 13th. Over the years, it had been broken up into a number of different elements, but is now back to its original smiley-face appearance from the tee.
According to Lobb, “Golf courses are one of the few land areas that are preserving and enhancing the diminishing heathland environment and this should be a source of great satisfaction. This, coupled with the completed bunker redevelopment works, has culminated in a further enhancing of this wonderful golfing experience.”
Over the last three or four years, Worplesdon has done an excellent job at future-proofing. Former Ryder Cup captain and eight-time Order of Merit winner Colin Montgomerie played the course last summer following the changes. “The club’s vision and works to restore and enhance the
heathland landscape and bunkering is quite spectacular and has further elevated this already beautiful course. Worplesdon reminds me a lot of Sunningdale and is one of the finest heathland courses in England,” he said.
Members have seen the benefit, visually, strategically and in terms of course conditioning. This is an activity in which many leading clubs appear to be involved, and in which many with more modest resources and ambitions are still keenly interested. For all golfers, this is excellent news.
With regard to the impact for Worplesdon, according to secretary Chris Lomas, “The members have been delighted to see the bunkers restored to reflect what you might hope to see on a classic heathland course, and to have consistency throughout is what all golfers desire.”