Meet the past PGA Captain who designed Ingrebourne Links

03/06/2025

The groundbreaking Essex venue welcomes the 2025 PGA Professional Championship, less than 10 years after Alan Walker’s modern creation opened its doors to golfers

Alan Walker, the PGA Captain of 1999, has described the course that he created less than a decade ago hosting the 2025 PGA Professional Championship as “the ultimate thing I could have ever wanted”.

Walker’s goal was to create a golf course that was completely different to the rest in his home county of Essex. The North Nine opened in 2017 with the East Nine following in 2020.

“I like to use the land where I can,” Walker said. “(It was) slightly differently in Ingrebourne Links’ case because we started from a blank canvas, and over the period of 15 years, we brought inert infill so that I was able to shape the golf course.”

What was once a wasteland of sand and gravel has become Ingrebourne Links Golf and Country Club, thanks to the work of Walker and Ingrebourne Valley Ltd.

Now excitement is building for the arrival of the PGA Professional Championship, just eight years after the first half of the Championship Course was opened.

“My idea when I was asked by the owners of the land to put a design together, I thought there was an opportunity to do something different from what was the staple offering within the county.

“An inland links-style, and we have to use all three words, otherwise I have absolutely everybody jumping all over me! It is not a links course, it’s an inland links-style course. That worked well, especially with my clients’ desire to make a profitable construction with the use of the inert infill.

“From a biodiversity perspective, we were able to regenerate it into a golf course. That was something that worked into our game plan, but from a design perspective, I wanted to lay something down that I felt was a challenge for players and playable for your average player.

“It’s such a big expanse and I actually used to love it out there, because you dream and (you think) ‘Wow one day, this is going to be a golf course’. I've had the double-wow of now it's going to be (the host of) the PGA Professional Championship.”

(Picture: Walker seated furthest left)

It’s the ultimate thing I could have ever wanted

- Alan Walker

Walker, a former Captain of the PGA and current member of the European Institute of Golf Course Architects, has also laid out plans for a third nine to be opened, following his 27-hole designs at Garon Park and Heydon Grange.

A field of 144 players will descend upon the site just 20 minutes from Central London to compete at the tournament which was won by Craig Lee at Conwy in 2024.

“It’s the ultimate thing I could have ever wanted,” Walker said. “First of all, being appointed the PGA captain in 1999 was something that I never envisaged that would happen. When I designed the course for the clients, I never once thought that we would host such a prominent event.

“The good thing about it is everybody at the club, and by that I mean the staff and the members, have got 150% behind it and can't wait for the event. I know that it will play well and be a challenge on the day.

“For a golf course that's into play for only five or six years, it's an incredible achievement for the course to be selected when you look at the list of courses that the championship has been played at.

“There's strategy on every hole, but I've tried to incorporate width in the holes,” Walker added. “What I like about the course is that each hole that you play, it's an individual hole. You very rarely see other holes while you're playing, so there's an individualistic approach to it.”

(Picture: Walker on right, with Sir Trevor Brooking)