Sitwell Park Golf Club
Sitwell Park (1913) near Rotherham was the first course Dr Alister MacKenzie built for a private client rather than for a committee and for this reason, says Tom Doak in his MacKenzie biography, was the first time the doctor had the “money and freedom to let his ideas run wild”.Unfortunately those ideas – particularly some steeply contoured greens – were a little too wild for the tastes of the time and the client, the eccentric baronet Sir George Sitwell, ordered the greens flattened, making the course dull according to a disgusted MacKenzie, who went on to later design some of the world’s best and most famous golf courses, including Augusta National, Cypress Point and Royal Melbourne.
So Sitwell Park is an interesting footnote, at least, in the story of golf architecture – and one many have heard of but few outside the immediate area seem to have played. I was curious to see what remained and made the trip.
The famous historic picture is of the 18th green. My interest was first piqued when I saw a version of it in Geoff Shackelford’s Masters of the Links and it also appears in Tom Doak’s excellent MacK biography and MacKenzie’s own The Spirit of St Andrews, published in 1996 after being forgotten for 60 years after his death (In each book it is captioned ‘140-yard short hole’ but the hole in fact is a stiff par 4 of 435 yards).
And this is the hole today in close-up and another where I combined 2 shots after realising back home none of the ones I took showed the whole area of the old green:
So the current green is just the top shelf, with some of the slopes in front
intact but maintained as fairway. As for the hollow where the caddie is standing
with the flag in the old pic I’m really not sure, though my best guess
is that big tree is there now.
It’s only fair to point out that without knowing what was there before
you would say the current green is fine – the picture below doesn’t
really show the tricky slopes.
MacKenzie’s distinctive bunkers have also gone – the simple oval style that remains is typical of the bunkers throughout the course.
One real curiosity on the 18th is the hazard crossing the fairway, which would have been old-fashioned even back in 1913. I wonder if an irate Sir George had it put in - as the sort of thing one found on what he considered a ‘proper’ golf course? Here it is…
I’m curious which of the short holes was the notorious 140yarder.
Here are some pictures:
No.5 
No.17
Whatever a disappointed doctor may have said, Sitwell Park is still a good course. The greens and bunkers may have gone but it is still a MacKenzie routing on a good though not outstanding site.
The site slopes down from the clubhouse, in the bottom corner very steeply so that the parallel 15 and 16, for example, look very similar from overhead but play completely differently – 15 a tough slog uphill, 16 an appealing hit-and-hope blind second.
A study of the card the card suggest many of the holes are very similar – all the 3s between 167 and 188 from the back, most of the 4s either very short or very long, but in reality all are different and most are memorable.
The best portion of the site is the run of 4,5,6,7 where MacKenzie makes the most of extremely undulating wooded ground. Here’s the downhill 4th – just 275yards but do you dare go for it? And if you are going to bail out how and where?
Sitwell Park is a good example of why, generally, I prefer old courses to
new ones. In England, most of the best sites where courses could be built
were picked out long ago. Add a good site to an architect as talented as MacKenzie
and today’s guys can’t really compete, however much earth-moving
equipment they have.
Verdict
Sitwell Park is well worth making a detour to play for anyone, for MacKenzie
fans it’s worth a special trip.
Besides the merits of the course, Two-for-one vouchers are accepted, making
the green fee something of a bargain.
Contact details, directions and so on are on the club’s website http://www.sitwellgolf.co.uk/index.htm