Camberley Heath GC restores bunkers on hole 5 back to Colt style

This winter course manager Ross Jones and his team with the help of construction firm Conor Walsh Ltd. have restored the bunkers on the long fifth hole at Camberley Heath. The idea was to restore back the asymmetry of defence of the hole, by removing the bunker left of the green, making the bunker right of the green larger and pulling it more before the green, by building a new bunker left in the fairway some 80-90 yards in front of the green.

The bunker style that was restored emphasizes the traditional sand faces with softly waving top edges Colt used when the course was built in 1913. In keeping with the requirements of modern maintenance practices a liner was built into the bunkers to prevent wash outs and contamination of the bunker sand.

The team also built several paths and renovated the tees of hole 15. The works are all part of a multi-year process to restore all the holes of Camberley Heath along the lines of the course plan that IVGD wrote for the club in 2014. So far work has been done to all holes except for holes 7, 10, 17 and 18.

“The works on the fifth hole of Camberley Heath continue our long term involvement in the exciting restoration process of this Colt gem in the heathland heart of Surrey. With every step the course starts to come closer to its true potential, and I expect more and more people to start to discover the qualites of the restored Camberley Heath.