Walton Heath Course Review: One of the most charming courses you'll ever play

Walton Heath Golf Club Fact File:

• Location: In Surrey at the bottom end of the M25, 20 miles from central London 
• Year Established: 1903
• Par: Old 72 New 72
• Length (yards from greens): Old - 6,313  New - 6,215
• Green Fees (weekdays): £275 for 18 holes, £400 for 36 holes
• Signature Hole: Old 16th, a formidable par 5. New 12th, cracking par 4
• Website: waltonheath.com

Walton Heath is a fascinating club for a number of reasons. Walton, as the members refer to it, had HRH the Prince of Wales as the club's first Captain in 1935, 32 years after opening, and he would become King Edward VIII the year before abdicating. So Walton Heath remains, and will likely never be equalled, in having a reigning monarch as captain.

The Old Course came about when Herbert Fowler was approached by his brother-in-law in 1899 about the possibility of making a course and, by 1904, it was open. 

The club's first pro was James Braid, then a one-time winner of the Claret Jug, and he would go on to win another four Opens. 

Opening the club the same year Braid was part of a threeball which included Harry Vardon and JH Taylor – they would become known as the Great Triumvirate, winning 16 of 21 Opens – and, also at the opening, was the Prime Minister AJ Balfour as well as three future PMs in Lloyd George, Bonar Law and Winston Churchill. To this day the club have only had four professionals.

The first nine holes of the New opened in 1907 and the full holes was complete by 1913 and, since then, the two courses have been a mainstay of Top 100s.

It has staged countless amateur events – the annual Walton Heath Trophy is regarded as a premium event – five European Opens from 1978-91, the men's Senior Open, the British Masters visited in 2018 and one Major when the Women's Open was won by Lilia Vu in 2023.

Walton Heath was also the venue for the 1981 Ryder Cup when maybe the greatest American team travelled over, with 10 major champions, to obliterate the Europeans.

Walton Heath Golf Club Course Review

Both courses have a par of 72 and both are split of 37-35. 

The two courses begin with a wood in your hand but the Old opens up with a par 3 which set the tone at 235 yards from the white tees. 

The Old is considered a tougher test and roughly 1-1.5 shots harder and when the big tournaments come to town they'll use 16 holes of the Old and two of the New.

For two courses with similar characteristics and on the same plot of land the Old will rank noticeably higher in the rankings but the Old has been tweaked more since its original design while the New is fairly intact.

Speaking in 2018, Justin Rose said: “Walton Heath is a course I really, really enjoy playing, in fact I love it. I went back in the summer just to ensure I wanted to take the tournament there and I had forgotten how good a course it is. It has got teeth but it is traditional."

They say this is where links golf meets inland golf. At the right time of year it is certainly bouncy and, with the heather out, it is visually stunning. 

The front nine is a battle with that par of 35 and you have to wait until the 8th for a par 5 but you then get three of them in the last six holes. 

The 5th is probably the pick of the front side while the 10th is a sweeping par 4 which is very easy on the eye but, like the rest of the course, a challenging hole too.

The 16th is the fourth of the par 5s and the most photographed with a huge bunker dominating things.

"We must begin by hitting a long, straight drive between bunkers on the right and some particularly retentive heather on the left, but that is, comparatively speaking, an easy matter. The second shot is the thing – a full shot right home on to a flat green that crowns the top of a sloping bank," wrote Bernard Darwin. 

"To the right the face of the hill is excavated in a deep and terrible bunker, and a ball ever so slightly sliced will run into that bunker as sure as fate. To the left there is heather extending almost to the edge of the green, and, in avoiding the right-hand bunker, we may very likely die an even more painful death in the heather.”

The New would be seen as the more fun of the two and more playable and this is certainly the case with the opening hole where it is possible to drive the par 4 with the right shape. The front nine is the easier of the two but then it gets harder.

The 12th is a brilliant hole, a long par 4 with a huge green with many options for pin positions and, incredibly, the back nine can be stretched to very nearly 4,000 yards coming home.

Final Verdict

If you were to go and watch a day's golf next year then make it US Open qualifying at Walton Heath. 

Here, as opposed to what we get on the DP World Tour, you will get to watch some of the best players tackling two of the best courses that the UK has.

Walton Heath has a real charm to it and so few world-class heathland layouts can boast 36 holes. 

Needless to say it's far from easy golf but that shouldn't diminish the enjoyment of trying to thread your tee shots between the heather – and sometimes purely to make the carry – and locate both the fairway and green.

It's a vast property, which seems to spread forever, but throughout the springy turf is a delight, as are the humps and hollows that pop up from time to time. The greens are similarly to scale, huge but fascinating, and the bunkering is fantastic.

Mackenzie & Ebert continue to make further improvements to a venue which continues to sit in among the best that Surrey can offer.  

It certainly enjoys a rich history – Winson Churchill was a member here for decades and it's been suggested that he invented the greensomes format – and Tom Weiskopf, claimed that the last six holes on the Old as one of the very best closing stretches in the game.

As always play from the appropriate tees as this can be a brute the further back you go and two rounds in a day here will certainly require plenty of you and your skills but it's very much worth it.  

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars ️️️️️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

For more information, please visit the club's website here