Once a leader, always a leader and there is no place to hide - you have to lead by example, year after year, decade after decade. In that regard, golf has been fortunate in that many of its leadership clubs from the turn of the twentieth century are still setting high standards that help define the best the game has to offer. Being at the Curtis Cup at Essex County as well as watching the Women's Open from Oakmont on television this year were timely reminders of two such clubs.
In England, Woking, Walton Heath, and Sunningdale all played monumental roles in the evolution of inland architecture and these clubs/courses continue to be benchmarks to this day. Be it their time tested heathland maintenance practices or how they intelligently have added length, these courses are every bit as relevant today as they were over a century ago when they set a new standard. There is much to learn in studying these leadership clubs and this month's Feature Interview centers on Sunningdale and what they are doing there as detailed by its Secretary Mr. Stephen Toon and Courses and Estate Manager Mr. Murray Long. Indeed, the focus of the questions centers more on Sunningdale's 'other' course rather than the Old.
On the New, thanks to the smart work that has quietly been done there since 2005, it has regained the playing characteristics associated with playing on an open heath, making it the perfect foil to the more treelined Old.
People from Bernard Darwin to Sir Peter Allen have always talked about 'the course where my heart most belonged' or 'the course if I could only play one more round.' Bottom line on the work that has been accomplished on the New is this: While plenty of people mention the Old in such conversations, it now seems like just as many people will start mentioning the New as it is now joins the ranks of one of those special heathland courses capable of engendering very powerful sentiments.
Yes, the New has always been respected, even feared, and is considered the tougher of the two siblings but I never really read where it was spoken of as affectionately as one often sees the Old described. That's BOUND to start changing - great holes, no weak links, a wonderful cadence, appealing peril (left of the fifth, right off the sixth tee, left on the twelfth approach, right off the sixteenth tee), the need for length off the tee and touch around the greens - the New has it all. World top fifty in my book.
Chobham Common is one of the game's magical places. Luckily, the sun popped at a couple of key moments when Joe and I went back out to photograph the holes. If anyone wants either photograph of the ravishing
fifth from its course profile as a remembrance of your time there, just email me at rmorrissett@cabotlinks.com and I'll send you the 2.2mb jpg. I am using one as my wallpaper and it is striking, especially when blown up to fill the computer screen. Alister MacKenzie noted in The Spirit of St. Andrews that the par threes on the New were 'excellent' and you can see why!
After having toured all 36 holes at Sunningdale this past April, a well known golf architect remarked that Sunningdale 'reeks of plenty.' What a great line! Congratulations to the membership and to Mr. Toon and Mr. Long for seeing the fruits of their labor pay off so handsomely. Their work is not done but for over a century, the game has been very fortunate to have Sunningdale as a leadership club.
Cheers,