Sunningdale Foursomes

I conducted a poll on Twitter posing the question:

“What is your favourite season of the year to play golf?”

The poll resulted in Spring beating Summer, with Autumn a distant 3rd and Winter not receiving a single vote…can’t think why!!

Also, what this poll possibly illustrates, albeit based on a small sample of votes, is that Spring was selected not only for it being a temperate season but also for favourable concepts such as ‘rejuvenation’ and ‘renewal’ after the cold and stark winter months (certainly in the Northern Hemisphere).

For most golfers and golf fans all around the world, this feeling of ‘renewal’ is viewed as the US Masters Tournament, played every April at the Augusta National Club. However, in the United Kingdom, golfing aficionados view the Sunningdale Foursomes, played annually in March, as the true ‘renewal’ and ‘curtain-raiser’ for the golfing season ahead.

Idiosyncratic, Quintessential, Eccentric, Unique, British…just some of the adjectives that over the decades have been used to describe the Sunningdale Foursomes, which also has no sponsorship, no advertising, free spectator admission and negligible prize money.

In this, the latest article in the ‘History & Legends of Golf’ series, my aim is to try and illustrate why the above adjectives are so apt.

Hope you enjoy.

Sunningdale Golf Club

Sunningdale Golf Club is located in Berkshire, England and boasts 2 18-hole championship courses, the Old and the New.

The Old Course is frequently ranked amongst the world’s best golf courses. Designed by Scottish Professional golfer Willie Park Jr (the Open Champion in 1887 and 1889), the course was constructed over hills, heathland and woodland which at the dawn of the 20th Century was considered a totally unsuitable landscape mix for a golf course. The course measures 6329 from the white tees, very short by today’s modern championship golf courses, but when opened in 1901 the course was actually considered extremely long!!

The New Course was designed by the world-renowned golf architects Harry Colt and John Morrison and was opened in 1923 and measures 6444 yards from the white tees. Several years earlier, during his tenure as the first club secretary of Sunningdale Golf Club, Harry Colt actually redesigned a number of holes on the Old Course. And as for John Morrison…well, more about him later!!

Halfway House

The Halfway House on the Sunningdale Old Course first came to my notice a few months ago when I met up with PGA Professional James Freeman for an article in the Meet the Professional series. James, in partnership with fellow professional Robert Steele, finished runner up in the 2007 renewal of the Sunningdale Foursomes.

During our chat he nominated the Old Course as his favourite course in the UK, completing the reasons why with “The sausage sandwiches at halfway are absolutely legendary!!”. His statement was endorsed when I uncovered a brilliant article published in 2016 by Golf Monthly titled ’10 of UK golf’s best halfway huts’ and the Sunningdale Halfway House was #1.

Tournament Format

The annual Sunningdale Foursomes was first played in March 1934, which spookily is the same year as the inaugural US Masters, and is played on the Old and New Courses.

Amateurs, Professionals, Ladies & Gentlemen are eligible to compete in this straight knockout match play tournament, with any combination of pairings permitted (which will be illustrated as this article unfolds).

Back in 1934, a total of 46 pairs entered. Today, the tournament is over-subscribed and thus entry is limited to 128 pairs, with entrants submitting a list of golfing achievements to support their application!! The event is now played over 4 consecutive days with:

• Rounds 1 & 2 played on the Old and New Courses.
• Rounds 3, 4, 5, 6 and the Final played on the Old Course.

Unique Handicap System

The Sunningdale Foursomes is very much defined by its unique handicap system. There have been minor modifications over the years, with the system (as of 2023) as follows:

• Professional Golfers (Gentlemen) are allocated a handicap of +1
• Professional Golfers (Ladies) are allocated a handicap of 2
• Amateur Golfers (Gentlemen) are allocated a handicap of Scr
• Amateur Golfers (Ladies) are allocated a handicap of 3

All competitors play from the same tees. All matches are played over 18 holes with sudden death if the match finishes all square. The number of shots given/received is the full difference between the combined handicaps of the respective pairs.

e.g. Match 1 is between Team A (Professional Golfers Alan Smith and Barry Jones) and Team B (Amateur Golfer Christine Brown and Professional Golfer Diana Adams). Team A would have a combined handicap of +2 whilst Team B would have a combined handicap of 5. Thus Team B would receive 7 shots from Team A, with the shots received aligned to the Stroke Index of the course.

1934

As stated earlier, 46 pairs entered the inaugural Sunningdale Foursomes played on 29th, 30th & 31st March 1934. The Times newspaper reported:

‘It was a Foursomes Tournament of unusual interest’

‘It has been a distinctly interesting meeting, apart from the novelty, and the matches have been, on the whole, very close’!!

Oh, how times have changed…

The winners were Miss D. Fishwick and E. N. Layton who defeated Miss M. Gourlay and Captain G.E. Hawkins 2&1 in the 18 hole final.

Diana Fishwick was one of the finest golfers of her generation whose achievements included winning the 1930 British Ladies Amateur Championship and representing GB&I in the Curtis Cup.

1935/36

Several pairings and individuals have won the Sunningdale Foursomes on more than one occasion but only 2 pairs have successfully retained the Sunningdale Foursomes the following year. Ross Fisher (then an amateur, but now a Ryder Cup Player and 5-time winner on the European Tour) and his Professional partner Simon Griffiths won in 2003/04, but the first pairing to successfully defend the crown was Miss J. Wethered and Mr J.S.F. Morrison.

For those of you that have read one of my earlier articles, namely Greatest Amateur Golfer, you will remember that I presented an argument that Joyce Wethered was the greatest ever amateur golfer, pipping Bobby Jones. As an example of the quality of their foursomes golf, in 1936, Wethered and Morrison played the 8th to the 14th holes of the final in ‘5 under fours’.

John Stanton Fleming Morrison DFC (or John Morrison as I referred to him earlier) was an incredibly talented sportsman…Cambridge Blue (Football, Cricket & Golf), represented England at football as an amateur and played first-class cricket for Cambridge University and Somerset!! He also flew bombers during WW1 and was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross (DFC). In 1928 he formed the golf architecture company Colt, Alison & Morrison Ltd.

Roll of Honour

Since those early years when golfers of the calibre of Diana Fishwick and Joyce Wethered were victorious, the winners roll of honour reads like a who’s who of British Professional and Amateur golfers from the past 85 years…the list below provides a flavour (and where applicable I have not displayed the less well known playing partner):

Year	Winner(s)	Year	Losing Finalist(s)
1937	Dai Rees	1973	Howard Clark
1950	Max Faulkner	1977	David Huish
1959	Michael Bonallack	1985	Bernard Gallacher
1982	Christine Langford & Mickey Walker	1994	David Howell
1990	Dale Reid	2001	Trish Johnson & Jamie Spence
1996	Luke Donald	2015	Matthew Southgate

(If you wish to view the complete list of winners and runners up since the event started in 1934 then please click here and then scroll down and click on Competition History)

Major Champions

As listed above, Herbert Gustavus ‘Max’ Faulkner won the Foursomes in 1950 and a year later he won the Open Championship at Royal Portrush, which after an absence of 68 years finally returned to the Open course rota earlier this year. He also reached the final in 1968 with his son-in-law Brian Barnes, one of the great characters of Professional Golf who sadly passed away a couple of months ago.

Other major champions who have participated in this event include Sandy Lyle (The Open & US Masters), Paul Lawrie (The Open) and Georgia Hall (Women’s British Open).

As an amateur, Sandy Lyle reached the semi-finals in 1975 but the infamous British weather intervened with the semi-finals and the final abandoned due to snow (incredible as it sounds, on only one other occasion has this event been cancelled due to the weather and that was last year, again due to snow).

Sandy Lyle and Paul Lawrie both played in this event as recently as 2017. Sandy lost in Round 3, whilst Paul and his son Craig lost on the 18th in Round 4.

In 2018 Georgia Hall won the first (and hopefully not the last) major of her career, namely the Women’s British Open. Less than a year later, she played in this event with Caddy/Boyfriend Harry Tyrrell but unfortunately lost in Round 1.

Ryder Cup Players

Over the years, many Ryder Cup players have played in the Sunningdale Foursomes, some of whom I have already mentioned…others include Tommy Fleetwood, Ronan Rafferty, Neil Coles, Brian Huggett and Paul McGinley.

This event is viewed by many of the players who participate as a fantastic pre-season competition. Whether that was the view held by Sam Torrance back in 1985 (when he and John O’Leary won the final at the 25th!!) I just don’t know, but a few months later he sank the putt that won the Ryder Cup at The Belfry.

4-time Champion

Jean Macalister Donald was a star golfer during the 1940s, 1950s and early 1960s, winning the Sunningdale Foursomes on 4 occasions. In 1951 and 1953 she was partnered by fellow Scottish golfer Tom Haliburton, who played in 2 Ryder Cups and was the Professional at Wentworth Golf Club for over 20 years.

She herself turned Professional in 1954 as at the time she was working for Dunlop and that brought her amateur status into conflict with the new rules governing amateur golf. As a Professional, she won this event in 1958 and 1961 with none other than the ‘voice of golf’, Peter Alliss.

Aside from the Foursomes, Jean Donald also won the Scottish Ladies Championship in 1947, 1949 and 1952 and the Ladies French Open Championship in 1947. And in 1948, she wore trousers at the Scottish Ladies Championship, which was deemed to be awfully controversial!!

First All-Female Winners

In 1982 Christine Langford and Mickey Walker, Professional golfers and founder members of the Ladies European Tour, created history by becoming the first all-female pairing to win this prestigious event. In the final, they beat the Irish amateur internationals Mary McKenna and Maureen Madill by 1up.

Amazingly, only two years later, the same pairings reached the final but this time Mary McKenna and Maureen Madill prevailed by 3&2.

Throughout the rich history of this event, several teams and individuals have established themselves as Sunningdale Foursomes specialists, none more so than McKenna and Madill. They reached a further two finals…in 1986 they lost on the 18th to Ronan Rafferty and Roger Chapman and in 1988 lost again, this time 5&3 to Carl Mason and Andrew ‘Chubby’ Chandler.

Newspaper Coverage

Part of my research for this article involved trips to the British Library reading rooms in London and in Boston Spa, where there are more than 20 million digitised pages of UK newspapers!!

Whilst gleaning the information required to complete this article, I could not help but notice the amount of column space afforded to Amateur Golf in general. As an example, for the inaugural Sunningdale Foursomes:

• The draw was published in advance.
• All of the results were published on a daily basis.
• Selected highlights from each round on a daily basis.
• Almost a hole by hole account of the semi-finals and the final.

I was unable to pinpoint why or when the dilution of amateur golf coverage began in UK newspapers, but as a starter for ten, I believe there is possibly a direct correlation between press coverage declining and the exponential growth of Professional Golf, globally and commercially.

The Nineteenth

I hope you have reached ‘The Nineteenth’ and along the way enjoyed reading my abridged history of the Sunningdale Foursomes.

I have to admit that I really struggled on how to finish an article that has been so enjoyable to research, write and publish…in the end, I decided to (substantially) modify Colin Powell’s peroration when he addressed the UN Security Council in 2003:

“Golf lovers, we have an obligation to future golfing generations to preserve the uniqueness of the Sunningdale Foursomes. We must not fail in our individual and collective responsibilities to ensure it thrives in a world of ever-increasing globalisation, technology and social media”