History of Royal St George’s golf course
The Royal St George’s golf course has an illustrious history dating back to 1868. The man responsible for creating today’s golf course was a London doctor, Laidlow Purves. Born and bred in Scotland Purves cut his teeth playing on the Burntisfield Links outside Edinburgh. He was said to have loved the challenge of golf played on seaside courses with all the extreme thrills and spills brought about by their unique and sometimes troublesome locations. Being based in London, he rarely had the opportunity to play a round on his beloved Burntisfield Links and what he needed was something equally challenging but closer to his London home. With the whole of the south coast of England to chose from it is reputed that Laidlow Purves walked a large chunk of the coast surveying for his perfect location. It has since gone down in local Sandwich folklore that Purves climbed the twisting turning steps inside the tower of the medieval Norman St Clements Church to take in the view of the great sand dunes at Sandwich. The dunes had built up over many centuries and had almost completely cut off the famed Cinque port from the sea.
The vista he took in is said to have delighted the good doctor. He had found the site for his new links course. Following negotiations with the Earl of Guildford, who owned the dunes, 320 acres and a neighbouring farmhouse were leased. An 18 hole course was duly laid out and in true Scot fashion Laidlow Purves hired, Ramsey Hunter, another Scot and famed green keeper, to supervise the course’s construction.
On Monday 23 May 1887 88 golfers and investors gathered at the course to inaugurate the new St George’s Club with Laidlow Purves elevated to become the first Captain of St George’s. Alongside him was the Liberal Peer Earl Granville, then Warden of the Cinque Ports who became President and for Vice President the 10- year old Earl of Guildford. The original 88 memners swelled to 350 by the end of the course’s first year. In 1902 King Edward VII, a keen golfer, gave the club its Royal prefix. The ever restless Laidlow Purves, however, drifted off the scene after some time mostly to establish the course at Littlestone, near Dymchurch.
In 1890 the Badminton Board of Golf rated the course’s first five holes as ‘so good that, in our opinion, they are nowhere excelled’. In laying out the course the designers allowed some Victorian humour to be displayed. Take for example the No8 hole called ‘Hades’. A short 180 yard but guarded by a large expanse of sand. The next hole known as ‘Corsets’ because of its constricted spaces, whilst the 7th hole became known as the ‘Unknown Sahara’. But it was the 6th hole that golfers treated with reverence. Named ‘The Maiden’ the hole rises some forty feet in front of the 6th Green. So well known was ‘The Maiden’ to become that in 1908 it became the telegraphic address for the club rather than the more expensive address of ‘The Royal St George’s Golf Club’.
With Royal patronage and a steadily growing reputation it wasn’t at all surprising when just six years after opening the Kent course held the first Open Championship held outside of Scotland in 1894. Fittingly, it was won by Englishman J.H Taylor. Since 1894 Royal St George’s has gone on to stage the Open fourteen times.
In 1904 Scotland’s Jack White wins at Sandwich at the first three-day Open Championship. Seven years later it was a good year for Harry Vardan securing both the Open for a record six times. In the 1920s American golfers dominated the Open including 1928 when Walter Hagen wins a Royal St George’s double. It would be 1934 when England’s Henry Cotton ended an eight-year drought of wins for English golfers.
The weather at Sandwich is always unpredictable, sometimes gloriously sunny whilst other times gale force wins sweep in from the English Channel. It was in the latter conditions that Reggie Whitcombe took the title in 1938 in some of the worst weather ever seen for an Open. During the Second World War, Sandwich was on the frontline and little golf was played on the dunes that could have provided the Nazis with an easy route into England. Fortunately, an invasion never happened and in 1949 South African Bobby Lock securing the first of his four Open titles beating Irishman Harry Bradshaw in a 36-hole playoff, twelve strokes ahead of his opponent.
It would be an agonising 32 year wait until Royal St George’s would stage the British Open again in 1981 when America’s Bill Rogers claimed his only major title, four strokes ahead of his closest rival. In 1985 the title went to Scotland’s Sandy Lyle who on coming up to the 72nd hole ran off into Duncan’s Hollow towards the left of the green having arrived at the green one ahead of his nearest rival. His first chip failed to get over the crest and rolled back to his feet. Television viewers around the world watched as Lyle sank to his knees. He eventually got out of the trap, but it had cost him 5 strokes. All he could do was wait to see how well David Graham handled the challenge. Graham bogeyed three of the last four holes and Bernhard Langer two of the last three. Fate was smiling on Sandy Lyle as he ended the Open one stroke ahead of Payne Stewart and became the first Scot to win The Open since Tommy Armour in 1931.
The next Opens were staged at Turnberry, Muirfield, Royal Lytham and St Annes, Royal Troon, St Andrews, Royal Birkdale and Murfield before returning to Sandwich in 1993 when Greg Norman secured a final round two shot victory over Nick Faldo. Norman’s 64 set a new-record as the lowest round to win The Open and his total of 267 beat Tom Watson’s old 1977 record.
The Open returned to Royal St George’s in 2003 proved to be a special year for 26-year old American Ben Curtiss in his rookie season on the PGA Tour. Ranked a lowly 396th in the world he encountered the challenges posed by a links course for the first time. Rookies rarely get noticed but not this rookie but on the second day of 2003’s Open he went out in 32 and collected six birdies in the first 11 holes to lead some of the world’s best golfers by two strokes. Now everyone was watching the Ohio native and asking could he provide a scintillating upset?
The local professional at the clubhouse provided the youngster with invaluable advice on how best to beat the challenging course which was hot and dry in the July sunshine. He dropped four strokes in six holes, but at the last hole he achieved an eight-foot put to reach par and on that day became the only player to end under par. He was bettering the likes of Vijay Singh, Thomas Bjorn, and Tiger Woods. Not since Tom Watson in 1975 had a player strolled out onto the course and nailed it in his first Open and the historians had to go back as far as 1913 to find when the last time a player had won his first major, that being Francis Ouimet at the US Open. In the press conferences that followed his win, Ben Curtiss relished the adulation afforded him for his success. “Right now, many people are probably saying, ‘Well, he doesn’t belong there’, but I know I do and that’s all that matters.”
The last time The Open came to Sandwich was ten years ago in 2011 when Darren Clarke proved that an underdog could triumph on his 20th attempt to win the title. The spoils at St George’s have been spread relatively evenly with Americans winning 44 times, Scotland 41, and England 22 times.
