The Club
THE CLUB
“I regard Woking, more than any other golf course, as my ‘spiritual home’…”
Bernhard Darwin – Lifelong member, and to many, the greatest golf writer to ever live.
For more than 125 years, Woking has offered one of the most thoughtful tests in English golf. Regularly ranked among the leading courses in the country, it rewards judgement above power. The fast-running fairways invite strategy rather than force, while the heather, generous in both quantity and consequence, asks the player to choose carefully between ambition and restraint. Here, there is no shame in taking one’s medicine.
The greatest examination, however, lies on the greens. Their movement is subtle in places, mischievous in others, and always decisive. Many matches have been settled – and not a few reputations dented – by a moment of inattention with the putter. Those who know the course well are rarely in a hurry to concede putts on certain greens.
Woking’s influence on the development of strategic golf is widely acknowledged. In the early years of the twentieth century, two members, John Low and Stuart Paton, reshaped the course with ideas that were ahead of their time. Their work on bunkering and line of play, particularly the now-famous central hazards on the 4th hole, helped change the way architects thought about how a course should challenge the golfer.
Among those inspired by Woking was Tom Simpson, later one of the most celebrated designers of his generation. It is said that his decision to pursue architecture was sealed after an afternoon spent studying Low and Paton’s work here. Without Woking, it is tempting to think that the courses of Cruden Bay, Morfontaine and many others might look very different today.
That the course continues to stand up to modern equipment is a testament not to length, but to the enduring integrity of its design.
CLUBHOUSE
Woking’s clubhouse reflects the same qualities as the course – traditional, welcoming, and quietly distinctive. For historians of the game, there is much here to admire. The Captain’s board is littered with significant names who played their golf here: Bernard Darwin, Gerald Micklem, Doug Sewell and Roger Wethered, to name a few. And not forgetting Arthur Balfour, who served as Captain in 1904/05 at the same time he held another position elsewhere – the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
Today, every member of staff shares a single aim – to ensure that members and visitors alike feel both well looked after and entirely at ease.
The pavilion-style clubhouse offers comfortable surroundings for food and drink, but it is the veranda overlooking the 14th green that has become one of Woking’s most cherished features. As players wrestle with a testing downhill putt, conversation on the veranda often fades, replaced by a collective, good-natured attention to events on the green. Once two knee-knocking putts have likely been declared “good good”, players head for a drink before finishing their match.
In earlier days, the clubhouse itself played an even more direct role in proceedings. The veranda was – and still is – firmly in play, and on occasion so too was the roof. Photographs remain of players attempting the delicate art of getting up and down from beside the famous clock – a reminder that while Woking has always taken golf seriously, it has never entirely lost its sense of humour.
