words by Tom

On a crisp, sunny Tuesday in September, we were on our way home from a few crazy days in Surrey, where we we treated to some of the finest golf this country has to offer. It is no secret that the heathlands of Surrey house some of the most spectacular and prestigious golf courses in England, but perhaps what is a secret, are the courses that are too often overlooked on a trip to this Mecca of English golf. After 72 holes in the previous 60 hours, both of us were regretting the previous commitment to an additional 3pm tee time we’d crammed into the agenda at short notice. 

The Monday of our trip was the only day with only one round of golf. Determined to keep the step count up, Sam had arranged a course walk with Niall Flanagan (proud member and club ambassador for Sunningdale Heath) to see the course for the first time and the changes that new owners Tom & Kristian have made since they took over in 2019. 

When we got out of the car and made our way into the small alpine lodge clubhouse for another obligatory double dose of caffeine (which at this point was the only thing keeping us going after a pair of alcohol indulgent evenings) there was a fantastic buzz about the place. Quite hard to put your finger on, but the club was all smiles and everyone seemed to be excited to be there and about the day ahead. 

The first impression was that it was awash with junior golfers – which is a great thing to see on any golf course – all of them pushing tour bags twice their size, heading out for an ISGA event the club was hosting. Apparently this is not an unusual sight at ‘The Heath’ however. Since Tom & Kristian have taken over, the club have embarked on developing a junior programme which now boasts over 130 juniors of all ages and abilities and when we headed out onto the course to look at the holes you could see why. 

Tiger famously learnt to play the game from the green, backwards. Learning the art of getting the ball in the hole, before learning to overpower the course with prestigious distance. Tiger’s dad Earl understood that the fundamentals of putting, chipping and pitching were of paramount importance to a great golf game, and needed to be mastered before moving further back to focus on his long game. 

This writer can only imagine what life as a junior golfer was like. Sam often talks about the Halcyon days as a junior golfer, being dropped off at the golf course by his mum at 7am only to be dragged off the golf course kicking and screaming at sunset. Those reading this who have played the game since they were a junior, will no doubt attest these fond memories of the game at a time where they owned a mastery of the short game and the concept of a dunge, skull or thin was something you’d only ever heard about but never actually thought existed. 

On that basis, Sunningdale Heath is about as good as it gets for junior golfers. 18 holes, measuring 3,700 yards it places not just a premium, but a total reliance on your short game to score well. 

With Suningdale essentially a male only club in the early days, it was proposed by Sunningdale member and captain – Edward Villiers – that a shorter course might be developed for the use of women that would operate independently of its neighbour, and subsequently Harry Colt was commissioned to route a course. Naill explained to us on our course walk that Sunningdale Ladies golf course was very much an afterthought when designing the original Sunningdale complex, and when Villiers asked Colt to create the additional 18 holes for the ladies club, Colt was frustrated as he would have designed a 54 hole facility differently than the 36 holes he created at Sunningdale and then an additional 18 at the ladies club. 

Undeterred, Colt worked with the land that he had available to him to create the ladies club, and it’s no secret that Colt knew what he was doing with his par 3 holes, so it should come as no surprise that there are plenty of great one-shotters here today and there as a phenomenal variety in the par 3’s. The 3’s go from 138 yards up to 241, and the assortment of 4 short 4’s are equally demanding and strategic in nature. 

Stuck in traffic, weaving our way through the infinite complexity of the Kingston-Upon Thames one-way system, struggling with the fatigue of the previous four rounds of golf, the prudent course of action seemed to be to lighten the load, drop the woods and just carry irons. Setting out with nothing more than a 4-iron in the bag, and with a par 58 on the scorecard I couldn’t help but dream of my first round in the 60’s, something I could later dine out on and not tell anyone that it was actually substantially over par and not under par as the number may suggest. 

I’ve only played Sunningdale Heath once, but I’m certain carrying a short set is the best way to play the course. Although Sunningdale Heath is not a par 3 course, it does own 14 of them, and a good par 3 course is something I’ve sought for a while. Somewhere I could work on my iron game as a part of my game I consider a weakness. The par 4’s that are here certainly do not need you to thump a fairway wood or driver at the green, but not having them in the bag took the decision out of our hands. It meant playing the holes with thought and precision, how the game was meant to be played. 

I’ll resist giving you the hole by hole analysis, but suffice to say the course blew me away. We got around the course in 1 hour 50 including an extraordinarily long 2:59s searching for Sam’s ball left of the green on 1, it was exhilarating, quick and enjoyable. The holes weave their way through the trees, and whilst a lot of tree cover leaves many of the greens in tight sheltered quarters, they create the sense of ‘compression & release’, giving you plenty of opportunities to stand on the tee box turning to each other saying how good the next hole looks.

The huge standouts were the short par 4 – 4th, with a green that is pitched front-to-back placing a premium on a well struck approach. The 9th, a short par 3 (adjacent to the 6th on Sunningdale Old) has a wonderful green which is perched above a steep false front with a natural amphitheatre of heather and rough around the back, and the closing 3 holes are simply magnificent. 16 – A short and tight par 4 with the old Suningdale Dormy house sitting behind the green, and then the 17th and 18th, two perfect short 3’s to finish which require surgical precision with a short iron.

Some advice about the 18th… When you stand on the tee, make absolutely sure you’ve lasered the pin and marquee behind the 18th green. When Sam pulled the 7 iron on the last, playing downhill and downwind, I couldn’t help but worry about what we were going to say when the ball went sailing into the gentleman’s pint glass behind the green. Luckily and after some deliberation, we lasered it again, and I was relieved when the yardage suddenly dropped twenty yards. It could have been a very awkward conversation with the locals if we’d have taken out one of Britains next top juniors. It’s a brilliant closing hole and the perfect way to finish, played across a ravine, to a devilish green which again pitches severely away from you making holding the putting surface a challenge in front of a baying crowd.

On the previous day’s course walk, we were lucky to meet Tom Reid who told us about the work with the junior programme he explained how the last 4 holes (which sit across on one side of the road which splits the course) can be closed off and used as a golfing playground for the juniors, where no doubt the chipping competitions go on well past sunset!

Since playing Sunningdale Heath, I’ve been amazed at the number of people who have not played it. The quality of golf in Surrey is outstanding, and there really are simply too many to choose from. But when you have courses like Suningdale Heath offering an exhilarating round in under 2 hours, a glut of great Colt short holes on some of the best inland golfing ground in the UK for the princely sum of a £35 green fee, we would sincerely urge people to find time to stop by.