Dear Harvey,
Some days feel borrowed from some other place in time. Saturday was one of them. A morning round at Sunningdale New. An evening at The Queen’s Club. That’s the kind of pairing that makes you stop for a second and take it in.
My Uncle Charlie McDowell has often said that Sunningdale offers the greatest 36 holes of golf in the world. He’s not alone in that view. And after seeing just one of those eighteen on Saturday, I can understand exactly what he means.
A Course That Doesn’t Explain Itself
My host at Sunningdale was Rupert Kellock, a friend of Charlie’s and a two-time English Senior Amateur Champion who can absolutely play. More importantly, he’s the kind of host every great club seems to produce. He’s knowledgeable, generous, and quietly proud of the place without needing to say it out loud.
When I suggested that Sunningdale members might play to a higher standard than most clubs, he shared that they have around 50 members with plus handicaps.
Fifty!
That tells you the standard. It doesn’t capture the experience. Because Sunningdale New doesn’t intimidate you. It tests you.
Harry Colt
Harry Colt’s design sits out on that exposed heathland with a kind of broad-shouldered honesty. It’s open, windswept, and alive. The land does most of the talking. Colt just knew how to listen to it.
He never gave too much away from the tee. You see enough to commit, but not enough to be comfortable. The questions come in layers. That’s why the course stays with you.
Restoring the Original Voice
What made the day even more special is that Sunningdale New is in the middle of a significant restoration led by Gil Hanse.
And you can feel it. Tee boxes are being pushed back. Greens are being expanded to their original Colt dimensions. Bunkers are being reshaped. And perhaps most importantly, trees are coming out – hundreds, maybe thousands.
The result is space.
Air.
Wind.
The course feels like it’s breathing again.
You begin to understand something simple but often missed: great architecture isn’t about adding. It’s about revealing.
A Course That Has Always Evolved
Rupert added another layer to the day that I didn’t expect. Before we left, he generously gifted me a copy of a newly published history of Sunningdale New by Adrian Pepper, a club member who has captured the course’s story in remarkable detail. Even better, Rupert introduced me to Adrian himself, who kindly signed the book. One of those small moments that somehow makes the day feel even more complete.
What struck me flipping through it later is how much the course has always been in motion. Harry Colt may have been the original architect, but Sunningdale New was never meant to stand still. Tom Simpson reshaped portions of the course as equipment evolved. John Morrison, Colt’s partner, made further changes in the late 1930s. The course was even handed over for military use during the war before reopening and continuing to adapt in the decades that followed.
Seen in that light, the current work by Gil Hanse feels less like a disruption and more like a continuation. Not a departure from history, but part of it. The course has always responded to the times while holding onto something essential. That balance between change and continuity is part of what gives Sunningdale New its quiet authority.
Ice on the Ball
And then, because golf has a sense of humor, the weather arrived. Standing on the 17th tee, a hailstorm blew in. Not rain. Not a drizzle. Hail. Ice on the ball. Ice across the ground. Rupert, generously giving me a shot a hole, had already done enough to keep things interesting. And somehow, in the middle of it, I closed out our match on that hole.
There are cleaner ways to win a hole. There are not many better stories. (See the storm blowing in below in the first short video, followed by a lovely interview with Rupert after his second Senior Am title.)
An Evening Shift to Queen’s
By evening, the setting shifted from heathland to London tradition. The Queen’s Club has a different kind of gravity. Less rugged, more refined, but just as steeped in history.
Thanks to our friends Colette and Richard Hutton, We attended a dinner celebrating the winners of their Open Tournament, the kind of evening where sport lives not in the scoreboard but in the stories told afterward.
Peter Fleming was the guest speaker, and he was outstanding. Anyone can tell a McEnroe story. Very few can land one. Fleming knows exactly where the line is and how to walk right up to it without stepping over. And he carries that same ease off the stage.
I had the chance to spend a few minutes with Peter, talking about what it really takes to be a champion. Not just the obvious parts, but the quieter ones that sit underneath it all. He was thoughtful, generous with his time, and a lot of fun to get to know. As it turns out, he’s also a member at my golf club in Richmond. I’d love to find a way to get out with him for a round one day.
What Stays With You
By the end of the day, two things felt clear.
First, the great places in sport endure because they keep producing moments. They are not museums. They are stages where something still happens. And second, the best days in golf are rarely about score. They’re about where you were, who you were with, and what surprised you along the way.
A course rediscovering its original form. A sudden hailstorm on the 17th. A host who made the day better. An evening that reminded you how much of sport lives in conversation.
Days like that don’t pass quickly. They settle in. They stay with you. And somewhere in the middle of it all, a proper sausage at the turn and a meal at Queen’s that lived up to the setting.
That’s more than a round, that’s a day you keep.
Yours in the game,
Page
“Millions of people were charmed by the homespun golf advice dispensed in Harvey Penick’s Little Red Book, a sports classic that became the best-selling sports book of all time. Yet, beyond the Texas golf courses where Penick happily toiled for the better part of eight decades, few people knew the self-made golf pro who coaxed the best out of countless greats — Tom Kite, Ben Crenshaw, Betsy Rawls, Mickey Wright — all champions who considered Penick their coach and lifelong friend.” – Kevin Robbins, author of Harvey Penick: The Life and Wisdom of the Man Who Wrote the Book on Golf.
