A longer, tougher Kingswood Golf & Country Club will greet players seeking to qualify for the Senior Open Championship next month.

The Surrey course has been named as a qualifying venue for the event, being held at nearby Walton Heath. British firm Swan Golf Designs has been working on a renovation of the James Braid-designed Kingswood for several years, and has recently added new tees to extend the par five fourteenth hole. 

Additional land was purchased to make the hole extension possible, with SGD designing the new tees and gaining planning permission earlier this year. Construction firm Speedcut Contractors put SGD’s design on the ground; the process took less than two weeks from breaking ground to the completion of turfing. 

Previously the shortest par five on the course at less than 500 yards, the fourteenth marks the start of a three hole stretch known by members as ‘Murder Mile’. All three holes play slightly uphill into the prevailing wind, with each providing a different, exacting challenge. Now, with the fourteenth becoming tougher still, the journey home will become all the more testing.