The 3rd hole

The 3rd in 1920

Played south beside the tree-lined railway bank, with bunkers down the railway side and one by the green on Swain's plan. In the afternoon round of the 1921 News of the World final, a newspaper report says Bert Seymour pulled his drive here and hit two balls out of bounds before his third went over 300 yards. Jack Gaudin recovered from the left-hand bunker to a foot from the hole, and took the lead when Seymour picked up his ball. Darwin, who knew it as the 15th, describes the railway and dark trees threatening out of bounds on the left and a green perched on a bunkered plateau. He preferred it to the 14th and said visitors always remembered it.^1,3,5,6,7

After 1936

Became the 15th (376 yards on both cards). John Swain says the pylons that first appeared along the east side in the mid-1930s could well have affected play here and at the 14th. In August 1946 the club heard that the London County Council's new road on the course's north-east edge would take the 13th green and the 14th and 15th holes, so this hole was lost.

There today

The tee falls on today's Prestwick Road. The hole ran south along the strip between the road and the main line, and its green now lies in the belt of trees beside the railway.