Walton Heath Golf Club (New)

The New course at Walton Heath Golf Club was designed by Herbert Fowler and opened for play in 1907 as a nine-hole layout. Fowler extended it to 18 holes in 1913.

Both courses (Old and New) are intertwined and have a very similar look and feel. The Old is tougher and a marginally better test, although the New is a demanding course with memorable holes of great variety; taking the two courses together can only be described as a real treat.

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After a gentle start (the first two holes being pleasant, but straightforward), the New course really starts to show its mettle. The heather comes into play and the holes progressively become more challenging. There are six par fours measuring over 400 yards in length; the stroke index 1 is a massive 469 yards from the white tees.

It would be remiss not to mention James Braid when writing about Walton Heath. Braid loved the Heath; he was the club professional from 1904 to 1950. For much of his life, he lived at Walton on the Hill, close to his beloved golf courses. He proudly called his house Earlsferry after his birthplace in the Kingdom of Fife.

Bernard Darwin wrote the Biography of James Braid and nobody was better qualified to perform this task. After all, Darwin knew him for more than 50 years. In the early 20th century, Walton Heath had a decidedly political atmosphere. Lord Riddle was an authority at Walton Heath and probably introduced Lloyd George, Winston Churchill and Arthur Balfour to the Heath. In Braid’s Biography, Darwin refers to a speech made by Sir Fredrick Hamilton at Braid’s 80th birthday celebration. Hamilton, quoting Winston Churchill, is said to have declared that golf “seemed a good game for conversation”. Braid and Hamilton regarded Churchill as the inventor of “Greensomes”. The actual inventor of greensomes seems a mystery as Darwin commented: “I may add that whoever else did invent it, his name, like that of the last Laird of Ravenswood, is ‘lost for evermo’.”

Walton Heath Golf Club has hosted a number of important tournaments down the years, including the European Open and British Masters, but perhaps the most notable of all was the 1981 Ryder Cup, which was staged over a 7,067-yard composite course. If you’d like to play the 1981 Ryder Cup layout, you’ll need to tee it up on both the Old and New courses, as a composite 18-hole layout was used for the event.