Founded 1921, on chalk.

The club was founded in the spring of 1921 by eleven men and, the minute book insists, one decisive woman — Mrs. E. Calloway, who owned the land and set two conditions: the sheep would keep their right of way for a decade, and the club would never borrow money. Both conditions held.

Harold Kirby-Vane laid out the course in a single wet fortnight, walking the downs with a notebook and a long-suffering assistant. He moved almost no earth — the chalk had already done the architecture, he said, and he had merely taken dictation.

The second nine opened in 1926, the pool for the Coronation, and the racquets pavilion in 2024 — each argued over for years and each, within a season, spoken of as though it had always been there. The club is like that.

What has not changed: the card settles arguments, the juniors inherit the place, and the figures are printed in full. A club that is honest about money can afford to be romantic about everything else.

The honours board

Captain, 2026

J. J. Merrick

The forty-eighth captain; drives in this April.

Club champion, 2025

S. Okafor

Second title; the final went to the eighteenth, as it should.

Course record

63 — R. Halliday

Set in the 2019 championship and unthreatened since.

Ladies’ champion, 2025

P. Whitcombe

Fourth title, which the board records without comment.