Sitwell Park (1913) in South Yorkshire was the first course Dr Alister MacKenzie built for a private client rather than for a committee and for this reason, says Tom Doak in his MacKenzie biography, was the first time the doctor had the “money and freedom to let his ideas run wild”.
Unfortunately those ideas – particularly some steeply contoured greens – were a little too wild for the tastes of the time and the client, the eccentric baronet Sir George Sitwell, ordered the greens flattened, making the course dull according to a disgusted MacKenzie.
So Sitwell Park is an interesting footnote, at least, in the story of golf architecture – and one many have heard of but few seem to have played. I was curious to see what remained and after some encouragement on this board from Toms Doak and Paul made the trip yesterday.
The famous historic picture is of the 18th green. My interest was first piqued when I saw a version of it in Geoff Shackelford’s Masters of the Links and it also appears in Tom Doak’s excellent MacK biography (but incorrectly captioned '140-yard short hole').
And this is the hole today in close-up and another where I combined 2 shots after realising back home none of the ones I took showed the whole area of the old green:
So the current green is just the top shelf, with some of the slopes in front intact but maintained as fairway. As for the hollow where the caddie is standing with the flag in the old pic I’m really not sure, though my best guess is that big tree is there now. I have to point out that without knowing what was there before you would say the current green is fine – the pic below doesn’t really show the milder but tricky slopes that still exist.
MacK's bunkers are a big loss – just that uninspiring oval thing is there now, which is the style throughout the course.
One real curiosity on the 18th is the hazard crossing the fairway, which would have been old-fashioned even back in 1913. I wonder if an irate Sir George had it put in - as the sort of thing one found on what he considered a ‘proper’ golf course? Here it is…
I’m curious which of the short holes was the notorious 140yarder. I did pics of all of them, all greens mild rather than wild. This one, the 5th, is my guess – it just looks like someone flattened an amazing putting surface on an inspiring green site. I can post the others if anyone is interested.
Having said all that, Sitwell Park is still a good course. The greens and bunkers may have gone but it is still a MacKenzie routing on a good though not outstanding site.
The site slopes down from the clubhouse, in the bottom corner very steeply so that the parallel 15 and 16, for example, look very similar from overhead but play completely differently – 15 a tough slog uphill, 16 an appealing hit-and-hope blind second. A study of the card suggest many of the holes are very similar – all the 3s between 167 and 188 from the back, most of the 4s either very short or very long, but in reality all are different and most are memorable.
The best portion of the site is the run of 4,5,6,7 where MacKenzie makes the most of extremely undulating wooded ground. Here’s the downhill 4th – just 275yards but do you dare go for it? And if you are going to bail out how and where?
We were short of time both before and after the round so didn’t have the chance to seek out and talk to anyone who knew about the history of the course (if indeed there was anyone there). But my gut feeling is that Sitwell Park has actually not changed that much over the years, with the crucial exceptions of the greens and bunkers.
It could probably be restored to MacKenzie’s vision, at a price, but that of course is a matter for the members.