Who's who: Col. S.V. Hotchkin

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Who's who: Col. S.V. Hotchkin

  • Name:

    Col. Stafford Vere Hotchkin
  • Country:

    England
  • Lived:

    [1876-1953]. Born on May 5, 1876 in Lakeside, nr Finsthwaite (Lake Windermere), Westmorland. Died on Aug 8, 1953 in Woodhall Spa, Lincolnshire (aged 77).
  • Original/Home Club:

    Woodhall Spa GC
  • Occupation:

    Landowner; army officer (21st Lancers, Leicestershire Yeomanry and Royal Horse Artillery); Conservative MP for Horncastle, Lincs (next to Woodhall Spa); High Sherrif (of Rutland); President of the English Golf Union; golf course architect; golf writer.
  • Turned Pro:

    n/a

Roll of Honour

Awarded the Military Cross in the 1914-18 war (the UK's second highest military honour for officers).

Golf course design

Hotchkin's best known work includes, but is not limited to:

ENGLAND:
Ashridge GC, Herts (1932, with Cecil K. Hutchison & Sir Guy Campbell) / West Sussex GC, W Sussex (1931, with Hutchison & Campbell) / Woodhall Spa, Lincs (1920s, modifications with Cecil Hutchison).

SOUTH AFRICA:
Durban CC, KZN (1928, major modifications) / East London GC, Eastern Cape (1928) / Humewood GC, Port Elizabeth (1931) / King David Mowbray GC, Cape Town (1928, major modifications) / Royal Port Alfred, Eastern Cape (1928, major modifications).

Did you know?

After meritoriously serving with the Royal Horse Artillery in Palestine during the First World War, Hotchkin developed an interest in golf course architecture. Returning to England in 1920, he bought his home course, Woodhall Spa, and set about remodelling it with renowned course architect Cecil K. Hutchison. The original nine-hole Woodhall Spa course had been designed by Harry Vardon, and was subsequently extended to eighteen by Harry Colt. It was Colt's layout that Hotchkin and Hutchison revamped, retaining only one of the great man’s greens.

In the early 1920s Hotchkin published his famous text, The Principles of Golf Architecture. By the late 1920s he had set-up his own golf course design company, Ferigna ... which took its name from his revolutionary iron-based turf dressings and fertilisers.

In 1928 fellow designer Hutchison and family friend Sir Guy Campbell had joined Ferigna. The firm covered all aspects of golf course design, construction, maintenance, equipment, turf dressing and seeding. With its three ex-military officers at the helm, Ferigna undertook the design and construction of several courses in the south of England ... most notably, West Sussex (1931) and Ashridge (1932).

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