Why Sunningdale Golf Club Is One of England’s Best Courses to Play

It's 5:30 AM, mist rising from Berkshire heathland, and you're standing on Sunningdale's first tee as early light catches the gorse. This week, the world's finest senior golfers are experiencing exactly this sensation at the ISPS Handa Senior Open Championship, which returns to one of golf's most hallowed grounds.

But here's what sets Sunningdale apart from every championship venue on earth: it doesn't just host great golf — it creates legends.

Circa 1900, Queen Victoria was still on the throne. Two brothers, T.A. and G.A. Roberts, decided to build a golf course on what everyone else considered worthless heathland. Madness.

They were spectacularly right.

While the golf world chased seaside links, the Roberts brothers saw something different in those acres of gorse and sandy soil. When Willie Park Jr. — son of the first Open Championship winner — laid out the Old Course in 1901 for £3,000, he proved inland golf could rival anything by the sea.

It's said that early members had to bribe a railway manager with honorary membership just to get the London train to stop at Sunningdale station. Sometimes greatness requires creative persuasion.

The Old Course isn't about overpowering length at 6,627 yards. It's chess on perfectly maintained turf. Take the famous 10th — standing on that elevated tee, you're solving a puzzle that's confounded golfers for 120+ years.

When Harry Colt designed the New Course in 1923, he faced an impossible task: create something worthy of standing alongside Park Jr.'s masterpiece. At 6,729 yards, he succeeded brilliantly. His philosophy: make every shot matter.

What makes both courses special isn't difficulty — it's fairness. Hit good shots, get good results. Miss badly, pay the price. Golf as it should be.

June 16, 1926. Bobby Jones arrives for Open Championship qualifying and produces what many consider the perfect round of golf.

Sixty-six. But not just any 66.

Thirty-three out. Thirty-three in. Thirty-three shots. Thirty-three putts. Not a single hole played in more than four strokes. The only "mistake"? His iron at the 13th found a shallow bunker, from which he chipped and holed the putt for par.

After witnessing this perfection, The Times reported: "the crowd dispersed awe-stricken. They had watched the best round they had ever seen, or ever would see."

Jones himself was moved to poetry: "I wish I could take this course home with me."

That 66 established Sunningdale's reputation as a venue where greatness reveals itself.

Here's what you won't read in official history books: Sunningdale has always been charmingly, quintessentially British in its eccentricities.

Dogs are welcome on the course — provided they behave better than some members. The halfway hut serves legendary sausages that have sustained generations of golfers. These aren't manufactured quirks; they're authentic traditions born from over 125 years of genuine golf culture.

Course records of 62 on both courses — shared by Nick Faldo, Shane Lowry, and Stephen Dodd on the Old; Graeme Storm on the New — prove excellence is rewarded here. But numbers only tell part of the story. The true measure lies in the memories created and the reverence inspired.

With the 2025 Senior Open off and running, Sunningdale will add another chapter to its storied history this week. The heather will frame perfect drives, greens will test precise approaches, and somewhere in the field, someone will produce a moment of magic that people will discuss for decades.

That's what Sunningdale does. It doesn't just host tournaments — it creates the stories that define our game.

Watching the world's best senior golfers navigate these hallowed grounds, we'll witness once again why Bobby Jones wished he could take this course home, and why, 125 years later, Sunningdale remains golf's most compelling theater.

The curtain rises at dawn. The magic, as always, awaits.