Hyde House Country Golf Club, Wareham. (1980/90s)
Hyde House was one of the many clubs which were established during the golf "boom time" of the 1980s.
In the 1990s the eighteen-hole course measured 6,469 yards with a SSS of 72. The woodland/parkland course with river and lakes was designed by J Hamilton Stutt.
I would like to thank Dave Thomas for bringing this former club to our attention. Dave was a member of a society that played the course in 1993 and he shares his memories and information of the club/course (below) with us.
"I played this "course" in 1993 in a match I organised between my society "The Three Shires GS" (Dorset Somerset & Wilts) and another, and we chose the most awful wet day in history. After a few plain holes, we really got into the thick of the course at about the 6th with a par 5 called "Oh God"........memory serves me rightly that there were a few other names! From the tee, one had to clear lakes and The River Stour to a landing area, distance, probably on 160 yards, but with water left right and in front. If this was achieved, the second was a similar shot about 45 degrees left, crossing the river twice again to another landing "area". If one was still dry and had a ball left to play with, the shot to the green meant crossing the river again to another minute landing area and green - It really was the most tedious hole that I have ever seen - (and I've played 400 courses!). The course then wound its way in and through tough woodland with very few paths that meant pulling the trolley and keeping it upright was nigh on impossible, and finished with the 18th which was a tee, 170 yards of water and a green. Mind you, there was a hole on another variation of the course where a boat was supplied twixt tee and green. The owners were some sort of London based adventure charity or such like, and the drive was down a two mile (it seemed) very rutted typical heathland gravel track where at the end one found this old imperial manor type house - all now demolished - I don't think that it lasted much longer, probably the late 1990's."
The club closed in the late 1990s. The Google Map below shows the location of the former course.