[Matthew Schulte]

Photos from a recent visit to Woodhall Spa.  Anyone have recommendations for a website that will allow you to post higher resolution photos from?


Left fairway bunker on #2


Approaching the 3rd green


The difficult dogleg left 4th from the left side.


Ignorance is certainly bliss as the bunkers are not visible from the tee here on the par 3 5th hole.


Fairway bunkers on the right side of the par 5 9th hole.


Greenside bunker fronting the 9th green


Illustrating the rugged nature of the Hotchkin Course approaching the 11th green


The exacting par 3 12th efficiently punishes misses on all sides.

[Will E]

Matt,
I've got to know, is this course as good as it looks? It's been on my must play list for a while and your pictures are fantastic. How did the course play?
Thanks.

[Matthew Schulte]

Shooter:

First off, congratulations!  Assuming golf trips will one day be in your future again I would highly recommend both Ganton and Woodhall.  

Despite a fairly heavy rain prior to my round the fairways and greens were fairly firm.  I can only imagine what it would be like in August with the fairways really running and the heather in full bloom.  The bunkering deserves its' renown.  It is a far more demanding test off the tee than Ganton, Sunningdale, and Walton Heath.  Unlike Sunningdale, at nearly 7100 yards from the tips it has plenty of length.

The only complaint is that because it is truly a public facility, rounds can be painfully slow.

[TEPaul]

Interesting bunkering. What's the history on them and that look?

[Matthew Schulte]

Tom:

I believe Vardon laid out the original routing in 1905.  Harry Colt was hired to make improvements in 1912 and to add over 500 yards to the course.  In the 1920s Major Hotchkin conducted some fairly extensive remodelling.  Apparently very little has changed since the 1920s Hotchkin remodel with the exception of adding more length through new tee boxes.  They have apparently been refacing ("refurbishing") some of the bunkers over the past ten years.

[Matthew Schulte]

Left side of par 3 5th


Front right bunker guarding 2nd green.  Perhaps 7' deep!


Right of 17th green


View of par 3 12th from tee box

[TEPaul]

Matthew:

Thanks for the info on the history of those bunkers. There's no question at all in my mind that GB has a wealth of bunker styles that are just so much more interesting than most of the bunkering in the United States. And Woodhall Spa is a good example of that.

[Mark_Rowlinson]

Woodhall Spa is not only bunkers, stupendous though they are.  It's a great course all round and well worth the long drive (from wherever you start) to get there.  If you do visit Woodhall Spa, try to make time to see Seacroft, a links course at Skegness - it's a little gem.

[A_Clay_Man]

Knowing that Pete Dye was heavily influenced by courses across the pond, it would appear that this course was the most influential, to him. Anyone else see the similarities?

[tonyt]

Matthew,

Thank you for the wonderful pics. A few more natural looking long term bunkers saved in my library.

Cheers,

Tony

[Paul_Turner]

Thanks so much for those pics.  Bring back fond memories and it's nice to see bunkers that aren't often shown.  I'd forgotten about that mega one on the 11th.

The steps give an idea of how deep some of those pits are; is there a shallow bunker at Woodhall?

Beautiful name for a course (and village).

[Jim Sweeney]

Great pics. I love the feel of the maintenance one gets from these pictures- definitely not overdone.

[Ian Andrew]

Of all the photos that have ever gone up on the site, I think this is the course I would like to play the most.

There is something about the severity of the bunkering and those wonderful green contours that I have to see this course........now!

Thank you or the wonderful pictures I have saved them on my computer for reference.

Ian

[Pete Lavallee]

Thanks for posting those wonderful photo's, Matt! Looks like a must play for the next trip across the pond.

[Darren_Kilfara]

Funnily enough, I think these pictures do too much justice to Woodhall Spa, which I thought was nice enough but a bit of a letdown apart from the bunkers. As Sean points out, the terrain is very flat, and I had an increasing sensation of "That's it?" as my round at WS progressed. (By comparison, the photos taken of Walton Heath don't do the course justice at all!) I dunno...anyone want to set me straight? I'd easily commute 4-5 hours from Scotland to Yorkshire to play the likes of Ganton again, but I wouldn't do the same for Woodhall Spa...

Cheers,
Darren

[TEPaul]

Darren:

Would you mind telling me why you like Ganton more than the others? Ganton is one I have been to and I really loved it.

[Philip Gawith]

I spent a large part of my life in that big bunker on the right of the 5th which is a lot deeper than the photo suggests.

One of the most memorial things on that course is the plaque on the tee of the short 12th (?) which says something like: on xyz date, Mr X holed his tee shot. Mr Y then followed him in to halve the hole. What are the odds on that??

[Darren_Kilfara]

Tom - I wouldn't definitively say that I liked Ganton more than any of the heathland gems in Surrey (such as Walton Heath), but I played it the day after I played Woodhall Spa and Ganton seemed clearly superior to me of the two. It's been a few years, but if memory serves I rather liked the routing at Ganton, really thought the terrain was varied and interesting - much more made for golf than the flatness of WS - and generally had the collection of more interesting holes, particularly a much stronger finish. I'm not a particular lover of great bunker design relative to others, I guess, and WS seems to be almost all about the bunkers, so I'm sure that's part of it as well. WS may perhaps be the slightly prettier course (although I liked the open, hilly panoramas at Ganton as well), but that didn't weigh heavily with me either.

Hope that answers the question!

Cheers,
Darren

[Jason Topp]

Photos from a recent visit to Woodhall Spa.  Anyone have recommendations for a website that will allow you to post higher resolution photos from?

Photobucket allows you to post photos of up to 2 MB as long as you pay a fee of about $20 per year.

[RT]

Ditto what Sean says, even about WS's no. 18.

Sean, don't forget no. 12 at WS!

And agree what Darren says about Ganton, though I was more enchanted by the course when we both played it, and Woodhall together.  No. 3 at Ganton is just a pearl, as is no. 4 green site (Colt!).  No. 7 as tough a par-4 as I have ever seen. no. 14, 15, 16 greens are tremendous fun and challenging.

[Neil_Crafter]

For those of you interested to learn a bit more about Major Hotchkin,  Tom MacWood has written a wonderful 10 page biographical essay on the Three Majors - CK Hutchison, Guy Campbell and SV Hotckin - and their work, individually and in collaboration, which is the GA Feature Essay in the new issue 9 of 'Golf Architecture' magazine which will be available in the next couple of weeks from www.sagca.org.au
Sorry for the plug but its a great essay and well worth the read.
cheers Neil

[Rob_Babcock]

A few more Woodhall Spa photos, taken May 7th, 2005:





And a few more hosted at Flickr:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebjr/tags/woodhallspa/

Matthew - Flickr is a great place to host photos, btw. We played 12 courses in England last year; Woodhall Spa was one of the few inland courses, and a real treat. We stopped there on the way from Alwoodly/Moortown down to Kent (Deal) where we played Royal Cinque Ports and Royal St. Georges. Photos from our "England Golf Adventure" at:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebjr/sets/347607/

Rob

PS - Yes the clouds packed a punch; it rained and hailed on us that day!

[Paul_Daley]

When O/S golf visitors bombard the British Isles, too often they get stuck in a "links" mentality, missing out on the likes of Woodhall Spa and Ganton up north, and the great Surrey/Berkshire/London courses down south. And others.
I'm totally guilty of this, but won't fall for the same mistake next trip. I've spoken to many golfers who hold the firm opinion that Woodhall Spa (Hotchken Course) is the finest inland course in the British Isles.

An interesting side-bar on Ganton: Gary Player once wrote that the Open should never depart its traditional coastal setting; but that if it ever did, Ganton would be the only inland UK course with suitable terrain and fast-running conditions to house the event.

[Kevin Pallier]

Thanks for the pics and memories Matt,

Woodhall Spa (Hotchkin) is a little bit 'out of the way' to get too but the course is certainly worth the effort. After a fairly benign first hole the course gets tough and it has the deepest bunkers I have ever tried to play out - they're unbelievably big.

Often compared to Sunningdale as the best inland course in the UK - it's a damn lot cheaper !! Favourite holes for mine is the P3 5th and the stretch of holes 9-13 (and the variety contained therein)

PS: I wouldn't recommend the other course on offer at Woodhall Spa - the Bracken - it's terrible, and suggest you play 36 holes at the Hotchkin as you'll have a much more pleasureable experience

[Ryan Crago]

great thread and photos.. thanks.

the one critique of Woodhall that i had from my visit that no one has mentioned, are the greens.  The romantic would call them "subtle", but i found them to be benign more than anything.  in some ways, it reminded me of muirfield in that the course was gorgeous, but greens were less than inspired; a good size, and flat(ish).

with all the wonderful bunkering, and fairway/approach contouring, i wonder why more of this didn't find its way into the greens??

that being said, subtle is often good, and less is often more... with a critical eye however, this is what popped out to me.

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