Bunker Mentality: How Wentworth Golf Club won the war against its own members
An exclusive behind-the-scenes look at how the bastion of British golf is rebuilding after the Battle for Wentworth…
While touring the grounds of Wentworth Golf Club I was intrigued to discover a portrait of Winston Churchill hanging in pride of place by the main entrance. As far as I was aware the only connection between the former PM and golf was that he is said (probably apocryphally) to have described it as ‘a game whose aim is to hit a very small ball into an ever smaller hole, with weapons singularly ill-designed for the purpose.’
I was, therefore, both confused and intrigued when I asked a member of staff about the painting and she replied: ‘Because of the bunkers.’
The clubhouse, better known as the ‘19th Hole’, actually has a bunker of its own — but not one of the sandy variety. Hidden beneath a members’ car park you will find a WW2 bomb shelter, designed in case Hitler’s bombardment of the capital forced the government to leave Westminster. Although the army of MPs never arrived, the bunker is a lasting reminder that resistance is quite literally built into the foundations of Wentworth Club.
