Where Surrey Heathland Golf Began
Woking Golf Club, founded in 1893, is the original Surrey heathland course – the one that proved inland golf on sandy subsoil could rival the links courses of Scotland and the English coast. A group of London barristers from the Inner and Middle Temple established the club on heathland leased from the Necropolis Company. Tom Dunn laid out the original course, but it was the subsequent work of John Low and Stuart Paton in the early 1900s that gave Woking its lasting character.
Low and Paton's contribution is historically significant. They moved golf course design away from the penal philosophy – where hazards simply punished bad shots – towards a strategic approach that offered multiple routes to each green, rewarding thought as much as technique. This was a conceptual breakthrough that influenced course design across Britain and beyond.
The Course
Woking plays to par 70 over 6,603 yards from the back tees, recently lengthened to over 6,500 yards. The routing runs through heather and pine on the Hook Heath ridge, with occasional views across the surrounding countryside. The greens are among the finest in Surrey – fast, firm, and full of subtle borrows that take many rounds to read correctly.
Ranked 18th in England and 77th globally, Woking punches well above its length. The course rewards placement and imagination over raw distance. It is a thinking golfer's course.
The Alba Trophy and Bobby Jones
The annual Alba Trophy, held each June, is one of amateur golf's most respected scratch foursomes competitions. In 1926, the American Walker Cup team – including Bobby Jones and Francis Ouimet – played a practice match at Woking against the Moles Golfing Society. Britain won 6–3, whitewashing the Americans 5–0 in the morning session. Jones would go on to win the Open Championship that year at Royal Lytham.
The club is fully subscribed with a waiting list. It is also home to the Senior Golfers' Society of Great Britain. Bernard Darwin, the celebrated golf writer, was a devoted member.