Sunningdale Old Course: a visitor's guide

What it is

Sunningdale's Old Course is a heathland course (built on sandy heath, not clay or chalk) about 30 miles west of London, at the private Sunningdale Golf Club. It shares the site with the club's New Course, opened in 1923. The Old Course dates from 1901 and sits eighth in the NCG Top 100s rankings for Great Britain and Ireland, and tenth in Golf Monthly's UK & Ireland Top 100.

How the course plays

The Old Course is a par 70, and Golf Metric summed the longest yardage given for each of the 18 holes on the club's own site to get a total of 6,666 yards from the back tees. It has two par 5s (the 1st and 14th) and four par 3s (the 4th, 8th, 13th and 15th); the rest are par 4s.

Golf Monthly's review, which Golf Metric read for this guide, describes a front nine that opens gently with the par-5 1st before a long, difficult right-to-left 2nd, then a short, uphill par-3 4th and a downhill par-4 5th. The 7th plays over a blind drive to a hill crest before opening out, and the 8th is a par 3. After the turn, the 10th tee looks out over a fairway that runs down towards the club's halfway hut, where players can stop for refreshments mid-round. The club's own site describes large, undulating greens shaped by the natural fall of the land, with cross bunkers, ditches and banks of heather framing many holes rather than trees, since the land was mostly heather, gorse and pine when the course was built.

Diagram to followSimple side-on diagram of the 7th hole at Sunningdale's Old Course showing the blind drive over a hill crest

Sunningdale does not publish a course rating or slope figure on its own site, so neither is given here.

History and a few facts

Willie Park Jnr, twice a winner of The Open Championship himself, designed the Old Course under a £3,000 contract signed in December 1899, and it opened for play on 23 September 1901, on land that had belonged to St John's College, Cambridge. Harry Colt, the club's first full-time secretary from 1901 and later the designer of the New Course, made changes to Park's original 4th, 7th and 12th greens that still stand today.

The club's most famous single round came on 16 June 1926, when the American amateur Bobby Jones shot a 66 at Sunningdale while qualifying for that year's Open Championship, a round the club's own history page still describes as one of the finest ever played there; he followed it with a 68 the next day. Golf Monthly's review adds that Sunningdale hosted the News of the World Match Play as early as 1903, won by James Braid, and has since staged the 1987 Walker Cup, the Women's British Open four times and the Senior Open four times. The R&A's own site confirms the most recent Senior Open was played at Sunningdale in July 2025, when Padraig Harrington won at 16 under par. There is no Senior Open or other confirmed event scheduled at Sunningdale for 2026 or 2027; the R&A has named Gleneagles and Royal Porthcawl as the next two hosts.

Playing it as a visitor

Sunningdale takes visitors on the Old Course Monday to Thursday, May to October, and you need a handicap index of 18.4 or better for men, 24.4 or better for ladies. The 2026 green fee is £450 for one round, or £800 to play both the Old and New courses in the same day, valid from 5 May to 22 October 2026; the club closes to visitors entirely from 31 July to 31 August. The 2027 fees rise to £485 and £850, valid 4 May to 21 October 2027.

Book by emailing info@sunningdale.com or calling +44 1344 621681 with your preferred dates and group size; payment can be made by card or bank transfer, due within 30 days of the invoice. The club books far ahead: its 2026 visitor season is already fully booked, and it opens its 2027 diary to booking requests from November 2026. A caddie costs £120 a round, including tip, paid in cash; book through the Caddiemaster at least 48 hours ahead. In the clubhouse and on the course, shirts must be tucked in and denim and metal spikes are not allowed; men need a jacket in the dining room.

Getting there

The clubhouse is on Ridgemount Road in Sunningdale village, Berkshire. The club's own site places it about 30 miles west of central London and 10 miles south-west of Heathrow by road; it does not publish a specific motorway route. Sunningdale station, served by South Western Railway, is about a quarter of a mile from the clubhouse in a straight line, a walk of around 10 to 15 minutes. Heathrow is the closest airport, computed at about 9.5 miles away in a straight line from the postcode; Gatwick is about 25 miles away.

Where to stay

None of these hotels are on site, and Golf Metric has not stayed in any of them; each is listed with its own website and its straight-line distance from the clubhouse, computed from the postcode. The Royal Berkshire Hotel and Macdonald Berystede Hotel & Spa are both just over a mile away, in Sunninghill and Ascot. Pennyhill Park Hotel & Spa, in Bagshot, is about 4 miles away, and the Coppid Beech Hotel in Bracknell is about 7 miles away.

When to go

The club's own visitor season runs May to October, with a full closure to visitors from 31 July to 31 August. Outside that window, from November to April, only members can play. As a heathland course built on sandy, free- draining ground, the club's own history notes that it was one of the first successful courses built away from the coast, at a time when many believed turf would not grow well inland; that dry ground was one of the reasons for its early reputation.