It’s one of golf’s worst-kept secrets, but now work is set to get underway at the English resort…
It’s widely accepted that a golf course in England will host the 50th edition of the Ryder Cup in 2035 – ending a 33-year wait for the biennial tournament to return to the country where it all started almost a century ago.
In the running are a proposed new venue at Hulton Park, near Manchester, four-time Ryder Cup venue The Belfry, and Luton Hoo, near London, which recently closed to undergo multimillion pound upgrades to its course and facilities.
Making up the quartet of hopefuls is The London Golf Club – which too is pumping significant sums into its chances of bringing the biggest competition in golf to the capital.
Dubbed the ‘London Project’, the plans include a five-star hotel and spa, luxury lodges, a sports pavilion, a state-of-the-art driving range, and a Callaway Elite Performance Center to complement its two courses – the Jack Nicklaus-designed Heritage, and the International by the late Ron Kirby, whose notable layouts include the stunning Old Head in Ireland, the PGA Centenary course at Gleneagles, and Apes Hill in Barbados.
The Heritage course has a history with top-level tour events. It hosted the European Open in 2008 and 2009, the World Match Play in 2014, and the English Open – when that made a brief return to the European Tour calendar – in 2021.
But it will have never experienced anything of the magnitude of a Ryder Cup. And that’s why planning documents, which have subsequently been accepted by the necessary local councils, stated: “We’re building the kind of infrastructure that is expected at world-class venues. We believe this puts us in a very strong position to host the biggest events in golf.”
Speaking to Kent Online, the club’s chief executive Stephen Follett, said: “The project came about because of a Ryder Cup bid that we were involved in, and our hospitality offering was the weakest part of it.
“So that’s when we started to look at the planning. We actually had an existing planning permission for a 140-bedroom hotel, but it wasn’t enough for what we wanted to achieve.
“So the project then grew arms and legs to where we are today, and I think really what we’d like to achieve is a turnkey solution for any event.
“Yes, a golf tournament like the Ryder Cup or any of the other golf tournaments that are potentially in the marketplace, we’d like to be able to host them, but we’d also like to be able to hold conferences.
“Speaking to people who visit Kent, the size of the hotel we’re creating and the conference space that we’re creating would help them bring international conferences here. So I think that’s what we’d like to achieve.
“We’d like to achieve a venue that we could host golf tournaments and major conferences. That’s really where we are.”
The last Ryder Cup hosted on English soil was over The Belfry’s Brabazon course in 2002, when Sam Torrance’s European side ran out 15.5-12.5 winners.
The 2035 Ryder Cup, meanwhile, is the only edition of the tournament between now and 2037 yet to be assigned a venue.
