Founded in 1891, Sheringham Golf Club is a renowned club that has a notable heritage as well as offering outstanding golf. Designed by Tom Dunn, one of the pioneers of British golf course design, the original clubhouse was bought from Harrods. It can now be seen at the Links Golf Club in West Runton, Norfolk.
Location-wise, the course’s position in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) on the cliffs overlooking the North Sea offers breathtaking and memorable views. Despite its lovely aspect, Sheringham is a refreshingly challenging 18-hole course, noted for its long par 4 holes (particularly testing when the coastal wind blows).
Sheringham Golf Club has been the venue for the English Ladies’ Championships three times. It was at Sheringham in the 1920’s that Miss Joyce Wethered, who was later to become Lady Heathcote-Amory, and largely regarded as the greatest woman player of her time, won her first championship aged only 18. The 17th Tee is still known today as ‘What Train?’, after Miss Wethered failed to register the 4.20 train out of Sheringham rattling past behind her, such was her concentration on the line of her putt.
Other past members of the club include Robert Falcon Scott (better known as Scott of the Antarctic) and Sherlock Holmes creator, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Strangely, there was also a member called Moriarty at the club around the same period that Conan Doyle wrote some of his most famous texts. Perhaps it is no coincidence that criminal mastermind Professor Moriarty ended up as Sherlock Holmes’ arch-nemesis…?
