[Robin_Hiseman]

Does anybody know what the story is behind these two abandoned holes on Wentworth's East Course?  They adjoin the current 14th hole.

Thanks

Robin

[Keith Phillips]

I played the east ~30x a decade ago but never noticed those abandoned holes - fascinating - hard to work out exactly how they would have fit into the routing

[Niall C]

Robin

Have you walked those corridors to see whats left on the ground ?

It looks to me like maybe the lower hole (right to left sharp dog-leg) tee'd off from about the current 14th tee and that the upper whole, comprosing a left to right dog-leg used the later half and possibly the green site of the existing no 14. So by replacing these two holes with how the 14 is now suggests they maybe fitted in another hole somewhere else and in doing so got rid of two akwardly angled dog-legs.

Thoughts ?

Niall

[Kalen Braley]

Niall.

I was thinking the same when I checked it out on Google maps.  If there were two sharp dog leg left holes there originally, as the old 14 and 15...then the golfer would end up right back in the proximity of the 16th tee to continue onwards.

[Niall C]

Kalen

Two great minds and all that 

Niall

[Dónal Ó Ceallaigh]

Are the 3 holes in the upper part of the picture part of the same course as the 3 below? The conditioning of the holes seems to be totally different.

[Kalen Braley]

Are the 3 holes in the upper part of the picture part of the same course as the 3 below? The conditioning of the holes seems to be totally different.

Thats just a color quirk where they pasted different images together.  If you look at it on Google Maps, it shows it better.

[Adrian_Stiff]

The clearings seem recent to me. If they would have been 30, 40, 50 years old I would have expected the vegatation to have grown back. I wonder if they were part of an idea from 10 or so years ago to make an extra hole?

[Robin_Hiseman]

Kalen and Niall are almost certainly right in their diagnosis.  Apparently, these holes have been abandoned for at least 35 years according to one of our members of staff who remembers playing out there as a kid.  So, somewhere else on the course is a newer, non Colt hole...or perhaps these hole corridors are part of an abandoned extension scheme?  Hopefully someone might know.  From Google Earth my guess would be that 9 and 10 have been split in two at some time in the past to form a par 5, Par 3 combo, but maybe someone here knows different.

I'll try to run down and get some photos one evening.

[Paul_Turner]

From the small amount I have...the GCA analysis is spot on.

A 1950s plan shows the bottom NLE hole described as an "extra hole".  The 14th is shown with alternate tees:  the current tee and the tee for that 14th hole dogleg if the "extra hole" had been played.  That general area of the East was almost total open heath...which is I guess one reason you can still make out these holes.

I would agree with Robin that the best guess is that 9 and 10 were once a combined hole.  But this would have been pretty early,  a 1940s aerial shows them as separate.

I wonder if some of this all played into the West being built, which rejigged the East.  Somewhere I remember reading that the current 1st and 2nd on the West were originally the opening holes of the East after which I assume they played the East 2nd (with the East 1st being added after the West was built).

PS the East was once a pretty wild course.  Huge sprawling sand bunkers and a much rougher "common"  land and heath feel.  I don't think the current owner would appreciate it.

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