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Founders
It was Commander George Hillyard who conceived the idea of a golf club on sandy farmland at Wiggonholt near Pulborough. His house overlooked an area of heather and marsh which he thought would make an idyllic setting for a natural course. How right he was!
This land was subsequently purchased by the Ravenscroft and Henderson families and then leased to the newly formed West Sussex Golf Club.
The course was designed and constructed by the renowned architects Campbell and Hutchison and completed in September 1930 when play started. (Recently Hotchkin has also been attributed to West Sussex)
It was an immediate success, as illustrated in this extract from The Morning Post dated Thursday 4th September 1930:-
"The course is laid out over a heather moor, rising suddenly and surprisingly out of meadow and marshland that is characteristic of Sussex....It is absolutely ideal golfing country....Every type of hole and shot in the game are there".
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Opposite is a reproduction of George Hillyard's portrait, painted by Charles Ambrose, which now hangs in the clubhouse lounge. His notable contribution to the club is acknowledged by the Hillyard Trophy which is still competed for.
Official opening
The official opening, on Saturday 25 April 1931, was carried out in stormy weather by Joyce Wethered, a lady member who by then had been British Ladies Champion four times, English Ladies Champion five times and a Curtis Cup player. Later Lady Heathcote-Amery, Joyce Wethered was considered to be amongst the greatest golfers of all time. Henry Cotton once said of her: "I have never played golf with anyone, man or woman, amateur or professional, who made me feel so utterly outclassed." The accompanying photograph confirms just how wet the official day was.
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Changes
Overall, West Sussex has changed very little since it was constructed. Most notable is the prolific growth of trees, mainly pine and birch planted in the 1930's. In those early days, the course was more of an open heath in character and the boundaries, such as the third tee and the tenth fairway, could be clearly seen from the clubhouse
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This is illustrated in the old photographs below and in the painting by Oliver Hall (now hanging in the members' lounge) of the 18th hole. They contrast starkly with today's tree lined views shown elsewhere on our web site.
Besides the inevitable lengthening of many holes with new tees, and the sixth hole being changed from a dog leg par four to the present formidable straight par three, the only other significant alteration has been the loss of so many bunkers to ever increasing costs of course maintenance and the inability of machinery to prepare bunkers designed for manual raking. As examples of this trend, the old photograph of the 16th hole (left) clearly shows four of its five bunkers in the original design, compared with none now; and the old photograph of the short 15th (above) shows two of the three bunkers which have all disappeared.
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