Johnson column: Nips and tucks have scarred Wentworth

by Martin Johnson

I was driving along in the car the other day when I passed a house with a very large placard in the front garden blaring out the ­invitation to: “Vote Leave!”  Which struck me as a spectacular waste of a space that would have been far better occupied by a flowering cherry tree, or even a plastic gnome?

Why, you have to ask yourself, would anybody be deluded enough to ­imagine that some floating or couldn’t- care-less voter chugging past in his Vauxhall Corsa would immediately exclaim to his startled passenger: “ahah, that’s clinched it! I’ve had it with that scaremongering PM, and his oily mate Osborne. My vote’s going to Boris and his chums.”

If I thought for a moment that erecting notices instructing people to do things could possibly work, I’d have stopped the car, stolen the placard, and made a beeline for Wentworth. And after a few squiggles of the indelible pen had turned “Vote Leave” into “Vote Leave Well Alone”, I’d have sneaked in under cover of darkness and re-planted it somewhere close to the babbling brook which now runs parallel to the 18th green.

The West Course at Wentworth, upon which the European Tour’s flagship PGA tournament, is about to be played, was originally designed by Harry Colt in 1926, and remained largely unaltered until the mid-2000s, at which point someone said: “I’ve got a great idea. There are lots of people who’ve never played golf in Florida, so why not save them the bother of having to fly all the way across the Atlantic and give them a bit of Sawgrass right here in Surrey?”

It’s an idea based around the ­American principle of importing famous landmarks. Over in the USA, you don’t need to go to Paris to gaze up in awe at the Eiffel Tower, or travel to Venice to glide around on a canal being serenaded by some budding Pavarotti in a hooped shirt and a straw hat. You just go to Las Vegas.

However, the idea of bringing a touch of Venice, or the Florida Everglades to Wentworth, is not of itself a cause for wailing and gnashing of teeth, as with all due respect to Harry, the West Course was never a thing of beauty in the first place.

Indeed, the only way it has ever provided a visitor with a sharp intake of breath, or an involuntary welling up of the emotions, is when they’ve been invited to cough up for the green fee. At which point, as your trembling hand reaches for the credit card, you’re entitled to croak something along the lines of: “At least when Dick Turpin was ­robbing coaches he had the good ­manners to wear a mask.”

But at least you had the compensation of knowing that in return for having to sell the wife, the children, and the family silver, not to mention learning to play the mouth-organ to earn a few extra quid at the bottom of a Jubilee Line escalator, that you were about to play on the same 18 holes as the likes of Palmer and ­Ballesteros when Wentworth was home to the World Matchplay.

Not any more though. And it’s not just the water. Virtually every hole has been altered to some degree or other. In fact, since Ernie Els was first invited to pull on his surgeon’s mask and reach for the scalpel, the place has had so many nips and tucks, you wonder why they haven’t commissioned a marble statue of Michael Jackson to stand in front of the old clubhouse.

In the spirit of presenting a fair and balanced argument, unlike people who plonk “Vote Leave!” placards on their front lawn, I have a confession. I’ve only played the new look 18th hole twice, and on both occasions I have made an involuntary contribution to the pro shop’s supply of lake balls.

And while the second occasion can be put down to pilot error, the first was actually a halfway decent shot with a wedge that landed on the green and then spun back into the drink. As it had the added effect of depriving me of victory against a deadly rival, whose cackle as my ball hit the water will go with me to the grave, I have to declare that my views on the new 18th hole cannot be said to be 100 per cent objective.

However, when the effect of Ernie’s re-design is to turn an iconic par five, with its fair share of spectacular eagles down the years, into the equivalent of a boring par three, it would be hard to argue the case for an architectural triumph.

It’s not quite the equivalent of flicking through the Vatican City’s Yellow Pages for a painter and decorator, and inviting him to have a go at improving the roof of the Sistene Chapel with a bucket of emulsion, but you could argue that it’s not far off.

This is not to say that the new look West Course doesn’t have its share of decent holes – the short second, for example, is as nice a par three as you’ll find – or is not a great test of golf. It is – but only if you’re a tour pro with a driving average of 320 yards, and are not required to pay the jaw-dropping green fee.

Actually, not many visitors do pay it. Most first-timers are on an annual corporate day out, congregating in the clubhouse for coffee and bacon rolls – “How do you do? I’m Algernon from accounts…” – and finishing up tired, weary, five and a half hours older, half a dozen golf balls fewer, and driving home wondering whether winning a Wentworth umbrella for nearest-the-pin at the 6th was compensation enough.

All the sadder for the fact that they could have had far more of a fun day out on the East Course, which, apart from being more handicap golfer-friendly, provides a natural, Botox-free ­environment at a price that has less chance – unlike the 18th hole on the West – of turning your eyes into a water feature.