...under Courses by Country and Architecture Timeline.
Most people, at least vaguely, understand the huge role that Woking played in the evolution of golf course architecture. At the turn of the twentieth century, man was a complete chump in an inland setting at a) adding strategy and b) making man-made features look natural. That started to change with Sunningdale, Walton Heath, etc. in the early 1900’s but Woking preceded these courses. Tom Dunn’s 1893 routing was good but what makes Woking so special is the work carried out by member Stuart Paton, who joined the club in the mid 1890s and was still on the Committee one month before his death in January, 1946. To my mind, the changes he made to the course over that period are without doubt at the forefront of golf course architecture and directly helped lead to the Golden Age. For instance, the bunkers that he added to the fourth fairway in 1901 are to me as influential as any man has ever built, certainly on an inland course.
Though its history is nearly unmatched by other inland courses, Woking is FAR from a relic. Trees are down, heather is up and tees are back. By that, I mean an intelligent tree clearing program has greatly stimulated the return of heather. In addition, the course has picked up over 200 yards in length in the past two years. Measuring nearly 6,600 yards against a par of 70, Woking is still quite a test. For example, Martin Ebert added a new tee back at the third. At 445 yards, golfers can no longer carry the ball past the shoulder of the hill. Forget having a short iron in; the golfer is hitting in a club consistent with how the hole played in Paton’s day with the green surrounds once again playing a crucial role. I take particular delight when leadership clubs of days gone by once again step to the front – the work being done at Woking is as good as anywhere in the United Kingdom and the message being sent from Woking is once again a great one.
Two matches of great import have taken place here. First, the Moles beat the US Walker Cup including Bob Jones, Francis Ouimet and Jesse Sweetser here in 1926. The other big match wasn’t when the Walker Cup beat the Moles in 1923 here but rather in the fall of this year. Anxious to avenge the loss that Jones sustained, a young curator from Southern Pines set off across the ocean to right that wrong. His evil opponent was Philip Gawith, the delightful South African who is actually hard to hate other than in this context. Any way, after being consistently out driven by upwards of sixty yards
on the front nine, the match player extraordinaire went to work. After topping his tee shot on ten
, his calm, cool up and down set the stage for a heroic back nine. Reeling, the South African tried counter-punching here and there but my steady barrage of bogeys and a few pars was too much. After shaking hands on the seventeenth, a huge roar erupted from the clubhouse. Modestly, I turned and bowed.
Later, Philip explained the roar was because England just defeated the Aussies in rugby. He can believe what he wants – I still think word quickly percolated back to the clubhouse of the great deed that had just unfolded. Great courses do indeed produce great champions….
Cheers,