Banstead Downs
Sutton, England
- AddressBurdon Ln, Sutton SM2 7DD, UK
Located an hour’s drive southeast of London city centre, the original 12-hole course at Banstead Downs was inaugurated in 1890, with J.H. Taylor brought in some time later to add another six holes.
Authors John F. Moreton and Iain Cumming in the book James Braid and his Four Hundred Golf Courses relate to Braid’s visit in 1932:
“Braid was given, sometimes, very specific tasks to perform. In September 1932, he was invited to consider the problems of the public footpaths and the holes that crossed them.
Banstead has twelve holes on the west and six holes on the east of the Brighton Road, A217. It was the latter holes, 7 to 12, that Braid dealt with, creating a plan with alterations to holes 7 to 10.”
Today, the course has been stretched to 6,581 yards, playing to a par of 71.
Highlight holes include the 419-yard 4th, with a right sloping fairway leading uphill to a sand-protected green, and the 455-yard 15th, which doglegs left to an away-sloping green.
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James Braid was born in 1870 in Earlsferry, the adjoining village to Elie in the East Neuk of Fife. He became a member of Earlsferry Thistle aged fifteen and was off scratch by his sixteenth birthday.
