... under Architecture Timeline (Willie Park, Jr. - 1900) and In My Opinion.
Anyone who has visited GolfClubAtlas.com world headquarters in the past year has likely seen ‘The Sunningdale Story’ booklet floating about. Written by Guy Bennett and edited by John Churchill, it is a chronological account of one of the world’s greatest golf clubs. It has been available for purchase on Amazon UK for the past ~eighteen months and through the generosity of its editor Mr. Churchill, you can now read it on GolfClubAtlas.com.
Guy Bennett, who was the Secretary of Sunningdale from 1934-1939, compiled the material in 1962. John Churchill, current member and historian at Sunningdale, augmented the narrative with text (which is italicized), photographs and Google Maps. Their combined efforts comprise more than 60 pages of highly enjoyable content.
We roll it out in three parts over the month of December. Part I is posted today and centers on the Old Course. Bennett provides a unique perspective as he had the opportunity to speak with both the club founder and the green keeper who built the Old Course under the directions and guidance of its architect Willie Park. Pretty neat for a course whose construction started pre-1900! The mural from Tatler and Field that Mr. Churchill sourced shows a largely treeless environ in 1914.
Sunningdale Old is a bizarre confluence of two Golden Age titans working on the same course within a decade of each other. That's extremely unusual. Generally, there is a 'great' architect and a 'less great' architect and more time separates their work. The surprising amount of change that took place in the Old’s first ~15 years was no doubt driven in large part by the advent of the Haskell ball a few years after Park finished the original layout. Demonstrating how technology has changed off the course as well, Mr. Churchill uses Google Earth to diagram the major alterations that occurred to Park's 7th and 8th holes by Colt. In short, there is no place better to learn who did what when at the Old and New Course than this updated version by Mr. Churchill of Bennett's work. In another example, the author and editor clearly demonstrate how Colt moved the 12th green to its present location. As it exists today, the twelfth gets my vote for favorite hole on the Old thanks due to its glorious string of diagonal hazards.
Fascinating features permeate the pages: The bunker in the center of the green at Colt's 13th, the Double Green à la St. Andrews that Park originally had at the 1st and 17th holes, and the changes to the Home hole after a Luftwaffe raid created a crater there.
The name Sunningdale connotes inland golf of the highest order. To understanding its history is to appreciate the evolution of inland golf from poor stepchild of links golf to its equally pretty sister. In the middle of the month we will post Part II which discusses the New Course at length.
Meanwhile, we should all thank Mr. Churchill for graciously electing to share such information with us on GolfClubAtlas.com for the world to see and study.
Best,