Scaling New Heights

Jeremy Ellwood visits Liphook in Hampshire, where a major upgrade has seen this stunning course move to the next level

- Jeremy Ellwood

Heading south-west out of London, there is a tendency for golfers to find so many heathland treasures in Surrey and Berkshire that they rarely cross the county boundary into Hampshire.

This is a shame, for yet more heathland treasures lie in wait for those of a more adventurous spirit. Not least of these is magnificent Liphook near the West Sussex border, designed by Arthur Croome with Tom Simpson then making small adjustments in the late 1920s.

This wonderful layout is already ranked 66th in Golf Monthly’s UK&I Top 100, despite perhaps not enjoying the wider reputation of its Surrey and Berkshire cousins. But things may be about to change on both ranking and reputation fronts following a major upgrade masterminded by course architect Tom Mackenzie, which was completed early due to coronavirus.

With phase one safely under the belt in 2019, phase two was then able to start earlier than planned, as I discovered when I sampled the redesigned layout in December with club captain John Dunt, vice-captain Nick Lees and secretary John Douglass.

“The plan was to start phase two in October 2020,” Dunt tells me, “but when we first locked down in March, we sat down and thought very carefully about whether we could bring it all forward.” When main contractors Profusion were able to accommodate an earlier start, it was all systems go. The second and final phase was completed over a four-month period of friendly spring/ summer weather, with the added benefit of no golfers for some of that time.