Birdies & Bogeys: England’s Best-Kept Golfing Secret

By Reg Potterton

The Drift provides deceptive, yet rewarding, challenges.

Others looked at the forest on the wooded estate of Lady Lovelace and saw only trees. When British Open champion Sir Henry Cotton visited the grounds in the late 1960s, he strolled through the woods and his golfer’s eye saw not trees but tees — and greens, bunkers, and water hazards. He teamed with course designer Robert Sandow and, in 1974, the Drift Golf Course was born. It is, say the locals, one of the best-kept golfing secrets in England: A challenging course, both deceptive and rewarding.

The peaceful setting in the bucolic Surrey woodlands offers privacy and beauty, as well as a glorious escape from the business grind in London 25 minutes away. And for more than a year, course, club, and clubhouse have been enjoyed by Associate members traveling in the United Kingdom. (So bring your card.)

Our party drove up on a typically English spring morning: Fresh, at times blustery, with a hint of rain that turned out to be a false alarm. The sun was breaking through, and as we played the course and the day wore on, we loaded the cart with unwanted sweaters and jackets. Peter Fuller, a PGA pro and the Drift’s head professional, accompanied us around the course, offering cogent tips on stance and form, and politely refraining from raised eyebrows when the occasional misbegotten clunker went MIA among the beeches, flowering shrubs, and horse chestnuts distinguishing the layout.

“This is not the kind of course you master the first time,” Fuller says. “You’ve got mostly narrow fairways and a fair share of water and sand. But there is nothing extreme — no canyons, caves, or deep holes. Nothing too far over the top in the way of hazards, but enough to hold your respect and attention. This is one of those courses that never stops surprising you.”

He was right about that, as two in our group discovered in mid-game when they strode confidently onto a par-4 hole and finished with 8 apiece.

“If you’re not in the trees, you’re in the rhododendrons,” one veteran had warned while we were warming up on the driving range. “And if you’re not in the rhododendrons, you’re in the trees,” he added before wandering off to the clubhouse and the seductive aromas of lunch.

Although familiar with courses all over the world, my partners and I — as first-timers to the Drift — had rashly predicted scores in the 80s and 90s as we left the clubhouse. Sadly, we made the mistake of repeating this to one of the members at the bar who finished off his gin and tonic, looked up, and said, “Oh really?”

BACK TO REALITY
Reality took little time to lash out. Silence deepened and sighs increased among our group as double digits turned to triple. Often, on some of golf’s most challenging courses, you don’t see the danger until you are upon it.

This is the case on the first hole at the Drift, a long par-4 of 444-yards, with a small narrow green protected in front by a bunker. The wind, which seemed brisk across the fairway, faded as we approached the green, and then returned with a vengeance. For the rest of the day’s play, the wind was just as unpredictable on each succeeding hole.

The seventh hole, a long par-4 of 441 yards, garners the highest Stroke Index rating of 1. As the course guide points out, “a long straight shot (is) essential to have any chance of reaching in two.”

After the seventh, the 10th hole claims the honor of being the second most difficult hole. This one is a long par-5 of 546 yards that calls for a straight shot off the tee to avoid the lake on the left and the bunker over to the right. The Drift’s third most difficult hole is the eighth, another par-5 that runs to 494 yards from tee to green and ends on a narrow green with an adjacent bunker.

TARGET GOLF
The Drift Club’s pocket-sized guide is well worth studying for incisive tips about each hole, but as always in target golf, accuracy is the talent that tells. Stray to the wrong side and you find sand or water. The trees, however, put a player’s skill to the fullest test. But having said that, there are a couple of holes that bring out the long, elegant rising shots that clear the tree line mid-fairway, as at the 14th.

While there are no dramatic plans to reduce woodland verging the course, there are plans to enlarge existing lakes and bunkers, to upgrade such facets of the course as irrigation and fertilization, and to replenish the grasses.

The grounds staff already has filled the old and somewhat rough-and-ready drainage ditches, and is at work daily on the new drainage additions, as well as on trimming the flowering growth at the verge of the woodlands. But the fairways, if narrow and often doglegged toward the green, are clear and open, with the tree line plainly demarcating the boundaries.

Although we came away chastened and wiser, we were eager to again play the Drift course. As we left, however, there was no brash talk about 80s and 90s. In fact, there wasn’t too much said about that day’s scores at all.

Reg Potterton, a Fort Lauderdale-based free-lance writer, played his first game of golf with four partners and a 9-iron and says his game has gone downhill ever since.

QUICK TIP
The Drift is a picturesque, woodlands course. For the golfer, that means narrow landing areas. “Accuracy is the most important factor in having a successful round at the Drift,” head pro Peter Fuller confirms. He advises visiting players to leave their drivers in their bags and to tee off with fairway woods. This is good advice for any course with narrow fairways, Fuller adds. The conservative strategy is likely to yield fewer strokes as well as fewer lost balls.