Walton Heath (pictures)

[Philip Gawith]

I made my first, overdue visit to Walton Heath about a month ago. I played the New course in the morning and Old course in the afternoon. I must confess that going round each course only once, I would struggle to separate them much in quality, not least because they criss-cross and traverse the same property. It is true that the property has a scale and a "roughness" about it unmatched by any of the other heathland courses I have played, but possibly also lacks the charm.

My main impressions would be: first, a club of great history and character, in part because of the Ryder Cup legacy, and partly because of the great story of the course only having three pro's in approximately a hundred years of history. James Braid is particularly prominent. Second, proximity to the M25 motorway is the club's dirty secret - the Berkshire also gets a bit noisy at times, but there are about 6 of the 36 holes at Walton Heath which really suffer. Third, inasmuch as there is a school of though that there should always be some visual distraction for the player on a straight line between the tee and the green - I have never seen this principle so clearly and consistently in evidence as at Walton Heath. Finally, i have not played many Fowler courses, but I did notice a resemblance between the bunkering here and the lesser known Yelverton in Devon.

The attached pictures are a sprinkling from both courses, with the New course coming first. I am afraid i can't recall all the individual holes so these are posted more in order to give a general feel for the course than anything else.

I played Walton Heath and St George's Hill three days apart - a reminder that within the category of "great heathland" courses, there is a lot of variety. Arguably the lack of trees, and more modest undulation makes Walton Heath the outlier vs the likes of, say, St George's, Sunningdale (Old) and The Berkshire. I suspect I would play all of these courses again ahead of Walton Heath, but having said that, it was still a very enjoyable 36 holes and i look forward to a return trip. One thing Walton Heath obviously has in its favour is that the course can be stretched much more than most of these other courses. Indeed, if you visit the website, they proudly announce that both courses are over 7,000 yards, which tells you something about their priorities!

[Tony_Muldoon]

Edited

I must confess that going round each course only once, I would struggle to separate them much in quality, not least because they criss-cross and traverse the same property. It is true that the property has a scale and a "roughness" about it unmatched by any of the other heathland courses I have played, but possibly also lacks the charm.



I played Walton Heath and St George's Hill three days apart - a reminder that within the category of "great heathland" courses, there is a lot of variety. Arguably the lack of trees, and more modest undulation makes Walton Heath the outlier vs the likes of, say, St George's, Sunningdale (Old) and The Berkshire. I suspect I would play all of these courses again ahead of Walton Heath, but having said that, it was still a very enjoyable 36 holes and i look forward to a return trip.

I've had two days playing and three brief visits to watch the end of the US Open qualifying and still I concur with all you say above.   I can now say, that for reasons I can't put my finger on, I do have a slight preference for the New.  However when you read the general literature e.g. Cotton or Peter Allen (who was a member there) it is obviously that first it generates respect but after multiple plays the better golfer can develope something akin to deep love for the place.

Let  no one reading this get the impression it isn't a very special place it's just diffent to the others.  If the others are Heather and Pine courses Walton Heath is one of the most pure Heath golf courses.  Of the big  flat open courses I'd put it above Woodhall but behind Ganton. 

Finally did you not find the clubhouse and putting green charming.  Lucky is the man who being a member here, can stop on his way home from work and practice his putting with a drink close at hand.

[Chip Gaskins]

Walton Health looks flat as a pancake.  Proving you can build a world class course on perfectly flat land.  Wonder if you built this course today in say central Tennessee (random spot) it would get the same accolades?

[Philip Gawith]

Chip, looks deceive. Walton Heath is not as flat as a pancake - indeed it has just about the optimal amount of undulation which I associate with some of the very best courses I have played. I won't try and hazard a guess at total elevation change from high to low point, but there is ample.

Tony, I agree with your points. I have not played Ganton but photos suggest you are right. I think I agree it is better than Woodhall Spa. And you are absolutely right re the vast practice green - a small group of senior members were getting a lot of fun out of playing a competition on it. I possibly understated the historic sense the place has - probably moreso than any of the other heathland courses.

[Rick Sides]

Great stuff Phil.  One of the original heathland courses.  I love the purple heather.

[Sean_A]

Philip

Thanks for posting WH pix.  Its been far too long since my last visit.  I just speaking of WH today and noting how it has some of the best bunkering in the heathlands - perhaps the best.  Its a toss up with New Zealand imo.  

I too find the New & Old to be quite similar in playing characteristics and quality.  Though I am not sure I would place either above Woodhall Spa.  I believe the angles created at Woodhall are more interesting and the bunkering to be better.  To be fair, Woodhall is one of the best bunkered courses one will find anywhere so WH just runs into very tuff company where this is concerned.  Though, and typically, I think both (all three really) could remove bunkering and not suffer.  The major aspect where WH wins hands down is the club.  WH is a great club and worth seeing just for that - especially if one is a huge Braid fan as I am.  

Ciao

[Chris Cupit]

Phillip,

Nice pics   Years ago I played in the British Mid-Am (when it still existed ) and I have fond memories of the course.  Is the pro still Ken MacPherson?  He was a terrific host.

IS number 1 still played as a brutally long and difficult par 3?

What did you think of #5--the big bending dog-leg left with the green that has all kinds of rolls in it?

[Tim Bert]

Walton Health looks flat as a pancake.  Proving you can build a world class course on perfectly flat land.  Wonder if you built this course today in say central Tennessee (random spot) it would get the same accolades?

I know you picked a random spot, but Central Tennessee isn't flat as a pancake either.  We've got some ideal elevation changes to build a nice course.  Our bigger problem seems to be the soil, which is granite or some other form of hard rock not very far below the surface.

I drive by several spots on a regular basis that would be cool terrain for a course.  The trick is finding the right person with the land or the money to get the right architect down here to do something special.

To answer your original question, I'd certainly be trying something out that looked like the pictures above if it got built here.

[Bradley Anderson]

Phillip,

I've always wondered what it is like to hit out of the heather on those bunker faces. Or does the ball kick and release into the sand off those heather faces?

Walton Heath is a very beautiful golf course. I just love the whole presentation with the low profile features, and the wildness of the trees and rough. But I just wonder if it would be impossible to get around it without loosing a lot of balls in the heather and the rough.

 

[jkinney]

I'm lucky enough to play at "The Heath" once a year, often on a Sunday while taking in the very proper English carvery at lunch with lots of Claret. What I find  most remarkable about the 36 holes is that they are contiguous and after all these years I still need to be guided around the 18 I'm supposed to be playing. It's almost narcotic being in the middle of so many holes. When the heather is blooming, as in these marvelous photos, and the sun comes out, it's breathtakingly beautiful.

[Gerry B]

nice photos - played both courses this past friday

love the heathland / parkland courses around London.

Also played Sunningdale New for the 1st time on saturday - had previously played the Old a couple of times - thought the New was outstanding - terrific par 3's  - has to be the best club in England hands down with those 2 courses.

was very luck with the weather - they have had a soggy summer and i hit the best 2 days in the last month

[Tom_Doak]

Chris C:  Ken Macpherson is one of the people who looked after me when I was a green 21-year-old living overseas for a year.  I went and visited him again a couple of weeks ago.  He will retire as professional in February of next year, but continue with the club in a part-time capacity, as his mentor Harry Busson was doing when I met him 26 years ago.

I loved getting back to see the course again.  It reminds me most of all of Garden City in the relative lack of ripply undulations and yet the difficulty of getting the ball close to the hole.

[Philip Gawith]

Chris, the first now plays as a short par four. Off the markers I played, around 300/320 yards. I am afraid i don't accurately recall the 5th - I will go back and look at my pictures to see if i can fire up my memory!

Bradley, the course is not too bad from perspective of losing balls. The rough is not as tough as a course like Muirfield. I think heather is probably a bit easier to find balls in than the long stuff. We managed to avoid any hanging lies in bunker heather so have to leave that one to your imagination!

[JMorgan]

Beautiful pictures... thanks for sharing, Philip.  Looks like an elegant course indeed.

[Peter Pallotta]

Philip - thank you for posting; I've been wanting to see more photos of WH for a long while. It seems to rest very comfortably at the mid-point between "found" and "designed" -- a golf course to play golf on.

Peter

   

[Craig Sweet]

Tethrow without the steroids?

[Richard Pennell]

Philip, once again, great photos. I love Walton Heath, and its right to say that both courses are superb, and the bunkering spectacular.

The thing that I love best about the courses, though, is the conditioning. It is everything a heathland course should be - firm, fast conditions, linksy tough to strike a ball from, wonderfully true greens at a sensible speed for the contours. And like true links, the wind whips across the land in the absence of many trees. I think Walton Heath is quite high up in comparison with surrouding areas, and so the wind drastically affects how it plays day to day.

Playing the New this Thursday, these photos just whet the appetite!

[Paul Nash]

I would love to play Walton Heath again because my one and only visit in 05 left me slightly disappointed. I say slightly because it is undoubtedly superb heathland, with exceptional conditioning and several really nice holes. I can also imagine that you could happily play here for years without getting itchy feet about exploring too many other clubs, because there is a certain hard-to-describe charm - although it would annoy me having the clubhouse on the other side of the road - I prefer the clubhouse being situated overlooking the course. I did, however, think that it was a couple of notches below Woodhall Spa, too highly rated overall, too much M25 noise in places (being literally the other side of the barrier), and too crammed in - one of the pictures above highlights a bunker next to a green, with the next tee on the other side - there were places where several greens and tees were quite crowded in. I may not be popular with my comments as most people seem to love the course, but of the heathland tracks in Surrey/ Berks, I prefered many others, not least New Zealand, Worplesdon, The Berkshire, Swinley and, the best of the lot, Hankley Common, which also has more in common with WH than the others, especially now the trees have been cleared. I cannot see how anyone could rate WH above Hankley, which is a really special place. Very nice that it is, I thought WH was a bit overrated - Top 100 for sure, but Top 25? Not to me. Having said all that, I did enjoy it and want to play again, who knows, it may grow on me more!

[Tony_Muldoon]

Philip you do need to go back, Fowler obviously intended both to start with short Par4’s but now only the New does.



The Old's first is the only hole on the same side of the main road as the Clubhouse and today plays at 235yards.  In order to keep the course longer on paper the club still has a tee by a practice area on the other side of the approach lane which adds 66 yards but it’s never in play now.


One of the fun things to do is look for the markers of the tees for the 1971 Ryder Cup and marvel at how forward they were.   So much rain fell in the preceding days that even at Walton Heath the ball couldn’t run.  I was told that  Jack Nicklaus was so an dominant figure in those days that he visited the club for one day and agreed the holes that would be used for the event.  So much for home advantage.

[Philip Gawith]

Thanks Tony! Sorry I was not clear in my reply to Chris that I was talking about the New course starting with the par four - the course I played first. So yes, the Old does still start with a long three (incidentally, and now i must be getting boring, the same as Yelverton!).

Certainly agree with Richard re the conditioning of the course - spot on re how the course plays and the playability of the greens.

I agree with Paul re Hankley being the most similar to Walton Heath (did you see the nice purple pictures I posted last summer? http://golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,30891.0.html)

Which is the better - I don't feel I really know them well enough to comment adequately, but I do agree that Hankley deserves more profile/credit than it has viz a viz other heathland courses.

[Dan Boerger]

I don't get over to London as much as I used to, but playing Walton Heath was a regular treat. As has been stated here, it's not as pancake flat as some of the pics may lead you to believe. There's a tremendous sense of rhythm to the course and while not majestic or overpowering in any sense, the nuances certainly grow on you. Throw a towel over the old or new ... both very strong. The 14th new is an exceptional hole, IMO, with great strategic bunkering.

[Mark_Rowlinson]

Philip, Great pictures, as always. The thing that disappoints me about both courses is the 18th. Both seem out of character with the rest of it. I played them both quite a bit when I lived in London in the 70s. The nice thing is that even if you haven't time to play you can always walk over the courses as they are on common land.

[Paul Jones]

Do you know which holes from the new course were used during the Ryder Cup?  The only time I played the Old Course, I could not find the Ryder Cup marker on the 18th hole and thought it was a good hole.

Paul

[James Boon]

Philip,

Thanks for posting the photos!

Paul,

During the Ryder Cup in 1981 a composite course was used, and they apparently used the 18th on the New course. See this link from an old thread regarding the subject:
http://golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,16923.msg295773.html#msg295773

Mark Rowlinson posts at the bottom as follows:

"As far as I can tell from Peter Dobereiner's account of it:

1. 2nd Old
2. 4th Old played from a tee behind 3rd green Old as a par 5
3. 5th Old
4. 6th Old
5. 7th Old
6. 8th Old
7. 9th Old
8. 10th Old
9. 11th Old
10. 12th Old
11. 13th Old
12. 12th New
13. 13th New
14. 14th Old played as a par 4
15. 15th Old
16. 16th Old played as a par 4
17. 17th Old
18. 18th New"

Cheers

James

[Tony_Muldoon]

2. 4th Old played from a tee behind 3rd green Old as a par 5

Thanks James, once you've recognised one they are mostly easy to spot but as I said surprisngly forward. Some holes today play 80 yards longer.  The only one that you have to search for is the second and it's in the rough on the right, someway short of the green.  Every year the club has a competition off those tees.