Those who follow Sunningdale head greenkeeper Murray Long on Twitter will probably have seen this already, but here's a rather lovely picture that Murray posted yesterday. As many know, he has spent the last few years researching and working to find evidence in the ground of Colt's original holes six to ten on the New course - these were abandoned in the 1930s as the members judged them too tough a walk, and eventually, after a number of false starts involving Tom Simpson, today's holes emerged.
Murray and his crew have cleared tree growth from much of the area where the holes were, but obviously that's as far as they can go unless the club decides it wants to put the holes back into play - except on the tenth hole, which is where the old loop and the current holes converge. Colt's original tenth was a par three, as the hole is today, but playing from a high tee on the ridge line to the left of the green. It's a fine par three from today's tee as well, but as the photo shows, the green was clearly designed with the approach from the old tee in mind. Amazingly, after almost eighty years out of play, there's still a considerable amount of fescue on the old teeing ground, which is easily visible on the ridge. And yesterday, Murray hit the first shot on the 'old' hole since 1935! Congratulations to him and his guys.
