"That was 100 years ago, and I think we’ve got to move on.”
/Thanks to the UK readers who sent Roger Blitz's Financial Times profile of Richard Caring, the multi-millionaire who is now taking credit for the renovation of Wentworth (which he owns). You may recall that it's looking more and more like The Belfry and this story helps us better understand why.
When golf course owners want a redesign, they put one of the top professionals in charge of the job. Caring is different. Granted, he recruited Ernie Els, South Africa’s finest and three times a winner of major championships, who happens to live on the Wentworth estate. But the way Caring describes it, the pro played second fiddle to the owner. “Ernie and I came to blows,” he jokes. “Ernie’s a great guy; he’s not cheap, because he’s one of the world’s finest golfers. But I would also at the same time insist on the things that I wanted to do… I know the game pretty well.”
And here's how...
Caring is standing on top of an enormously high bunker, admiring his handiwork from behind a pair of tinted glasses. “This used to be a little bunker here, with an old tree next to it. So, we’ve made this a hell of a lot bigger,” he says. The shape of the bunker is a new design, he adds, and, with a certain mischievous look in his eye, volunteers that he suspects the traditional Wentworth members won’t like it.
“You get the odd sort of veteran octogenarian who will say, ‘You know what, I don’t know if Harry really wanted it to look like that.’” Harry is Harry Colt, original designer of the west course in 1926. “My point is, well that was 100 years ago, and I think we’ve got to move on.”
Julian Small, Wentworth’s chief executive, suggests standing in the bunker to get a sense of the obstacle facing the golfer who hits his ball into it. Caring cracks one of his dazzling white smiles. “I put one of our older members in here with a couple of golf balls. He didn’t get out, did he? Not only could he not get the ball out, he couldn’t get out himself.” The entourage laughs.
We'll see if they're laughing in a few years!