Coombe Hill

Kingston-Upon-Thames, Surrey.
Par 71, 6,401 yards.

Designer: JF Abercromby.
Green fees: Mon-Fri £90.
Tel: 020 8336 7600.

Coombe Hill joins the Surrey glitterati in our English Top 100, but this historic club has more to it than just a wonderful parkland course which, as this picture by long-time member (and professional photographer) Peter Dazeley illustrates, is stunning in its beauty. It was the fabled JF Abercromby who helped found the club in 1910 and, having created nearby Worplesdon, ‘Aber’ was appointed course architect. For weeks after he walked the ground, measuring distances by eye as the course took shape in his mind. There are also tales of him hovering over the land for hours in a hot air balloon. Ten years later Coombe Hill opened with a game between Sir Arthur H Paget and the Rt Hon AJ Balfour MP which was to set the tone for the club, the links with parliament continuing with Winston Churchill, Herbert Henry Asquith and David Lloyd George all playing here.

Leading writers such as W. Somerset Maugham and Ian Fleming as well as Lords Northcliffe, Beaverbrook and Rothermere also teed it up at Coombe Hill in the early decades but the most famous names to grace the club were those of royalty. Their Royal Highnesses the Prince of Wales — later to become Edward VIII — and the Duke of York, who reigned as George VI both played at Coombe Hill and were treated as ordinary members despite their status. The club has remarkable images of them waiting patiently by the starter’s hut to tee off. Finally, Coombe Hill has had four professionals who became Open champions: Arthur Havers, Sandy Herd, Henry Cotton and Dick Burton.