Royal Wimbledon Golf Club: Golf history meets the future
It is a twenty-minute walk from the entrance to the All England Lawn & Tennis Club to the Royal Wimbledon Golf Club. There are elegant residential buildings along the way, as well as pubs, cafés and small stores. Wimbledon means inner London. In 1865, this was an area of woodland and heathland, a good distance from Westminster and Buckingham Palace. The city has since grown into the outer areas. Wimbledon is now considered a golf course in the middle of the city. “It’s eight miles to the centre,” says Robert Brewer, General Manager of the Royal Wimbledon Golf Club, describing the current position of the third oldest golf club in the UK. This means that it doesn’t really get any closer than this. With around 90 hectares of land, the private club is highly sought after when it comes to memberships. In addition to the long-established membership, the club also counts the odd well-known footballer or tennis player among its members.
No wonder: the good 18-hole course designed by Harry Colt in 1924 stretches over surprisingly hilly terrain. The views of the parkland area with its old trees and a few distant tower blocks in the centre of London are phenomenal, and the clubhouse, which is also over a hundred years old, exudes charm.
However, this product can only work because Brewer and the club’s management team have given the facility a modernization strategy that primarily affects two sensitive areas: firstly, the positioning of the club in the middle of the city. Secondly, the need for a sustainable approach to the environment. Around half of the Royal Wimbledon Golf Club is located in a nature reserve, or as it is known in England, a Site of Special Specific Interest. At the same time, Wimbledon is one of the city’s top residential areas. “We have just over 50 houses directly adjacent to our course,” explains Brewer. The noise of the greenkeeping machines is therefore an issue – and one reason why the club has had various electric mowers in its inventory for a few years now and is working on expanding them.
Doing the right thing – and communicating it
In order to gain public acceptance, the Royal Wimbledon Golf Club must therefore position itself as an important natural area in the middle of the city, as a promoter of sport for young people and at the same time document the sustainable use of resources. A requirement profile that led to the golf course being one of the first group of English golf courses to opt for GEO certification. “On the one hand, it’s the right thing to do anyway, but at the same time it’s also important for us to pass on the right message to our environment and explain what we’re doing.”
A sustainability working group is continuously working on various projects. It started with renovation and redesign work on the course, carried out by Tom Mackenzie and Martin Ebert. “We had to make the golf course relevant again, renew the irrigation system and relocate bunkers,” explains the General Manager. 2025 is the first year in which members will play the finished course.
The club’s heather restoration project was also integrated into the project. The mosaic stones of grass and heathland, which are preferable to pure heathland in terms of value, fit in with the original landscape, but require constant work and attention from the greenkeeping team.
Change in water management
In July 2025, the course is brown in many areas because Royal Wimbledon Golf Club, like many other golf courses, irrigates with tap water and saves water as much as possible. With the dry spring and summer, this type of supply has turned out to be extremely cost-intensive, and there are now plans for a well with a groundwater supply. The club management knows that the current water supply is neither economically nor ecologically sustainable.
Such projects are not always easy to communicate to employees or members. For example, Brewer has just explained to the club chef that an electric appliance is replacing the gas stove in the kitchen. As old as the clubhouse is, every new lamp is an LED product, and every detail is first checked to see if it makes sense. The working group focuses on regional purchasing, waste avoidance and recycling.
No, explains Robert Brewer, who initially worked at Sunningdale Golf Club, he could never have imagined that all these sustainability issues would one day be part of his professional environment. Who would have thought you would ever have to deal with water scarcity in England?
Times are changing, and the Royal Wimbledon Golf Club is adapting and changing, too. Those responsible have realised that a proud look at their long history is no guarantee of a secure future.
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