West Byfleet Golf Club

West Byfleet Golf Club began life as Bleakdown Golf Club in 1906, with the club’s professional, Scotsman Cuthbert Butchart, laying out the holes across a narrow 105-acre tract that runs alongside the railway line from London to Woking and beyond. Butchart also designed the acclaimed West Hill in 1910, located at Brookwood only a handful of miles to the west.

The course was turned over to agriculture during the Great War, with the clubhouse becoming a small hospital. Following the purchase of the freehold from the original land-owner Hugh Locke King (also the founder of neighbouring New Zealand Golf Club), the Club engaged J.F. Abercromby to redesign the course, and it was reported in the Daily Herald in May 1922 that the club “would be known as the West Byfleet Golf Club from 1 July and it was hoped that the full 18-hole course would be opened shortly.”

Over time, minor changes were made to Abercromby’s course by three other legendary figures in golf architecture – James Braid, Arthur Croome and John Morrison – Harry Colt’s business partner at the time. When you consider that Samuel “Mure” Fergusson – the original designer and Managing Director of New Zealand - was also present in the early days of Bleakdown, West Byfleet’s history has an architectural pedigree that is hard to match.

The club engaged the R&A and Open specialists Mackenzie & Ebert to produce a course audit in 2011, which was updated six years later, and the eventual Masterplan works were completed in time for the West Byfleet centenary celebrations in 2022.