Shillinglee Park, the attractive nine-holer just inside the West Sussex border with Surrey, will cease to be a golf course next month.

The new owner, Paul Wedge, who is not a golfer and lives within half-a-mile of the course, has other plans for the property.

These are not being revealed at this stage. Members have called a special meeting for July 17 and hope to stop the course being destroyed. But I understand contracts have been exchanged and completion is scheduled for August 31.

The Shillinglee house committee, which includes two lawyers, one of whom is a conveyancing expert, hope even at this late stage to delay the sale in case events take a different turn.

Shillinglee's plight has not gone unnoticed. Nearby Wildwood is opening a nine-hole course next May and have offered members use of the facility. Over the last five years or so Shillinglee has made a loss and that could be a factor if the new owner applies to West Sussex County Council for permission to carry out his plans.

A club insider told me: "We are hoping a counter-bid will come in that would enable us to continue even at this late stage.

"Nobody at the club knows what Mr Wedge wants to do with the property except that he does not want to keep it as a golf course. He might just want to convert it into a house and have a beautiful garden."

Roger Mace, the former owner and professional who now runs a driving range and par three course at Andover, was not aware Shillinglee had been sold.

Mace, who lost control of Shillinglee late in 1996, said: "I heard it was up for sale but not that things had gone this far."

He said revenue from the course he designed and built in 1980 did not live up to expectations despite a healthy few years to start with.

The bank called in the receivers and the recession had claimed another victim.

Mace said: "When I couldn't satisfy the bank any longer, I had to get out almost at a moment's notice.

"It broke my heart for I had built it up from a tumbledown sort of place into a half-decent nine holes.

"The experience was horrible. I could quite understand why people jump off Beachy Head. If the man who has bought it now wants to build a house there I'm not so sure he'd get permission. When I tried, I couldn't get it for our own use."

After Mace departed, Shillinglee was bought by Gary Baxter who had no previous experience in golf management but is a keen golfer and ran his new acquisition through a new company. When Baxter became the new owner his plans were to, "enhance all the good things about the club".

But Shillinglee's good times were over and it struggled. In this respect it was not alone and it is hard to see what future lay ahead for the club in terms of breaking even let alone making a profit.

Yet Mace had done a great job. Shillinglee has a rare charm for the surroundings are very much 18th century. Then, under the patronage of Earl Winterton, it was the scene of elegant pursuits, the walled putting green a reminder of how the upper classes spent their leisure hours in this delectable part of the countryside not far from Petworth.

Now its future is in the melting pot. Paul Wedge, the new owner of Shillinglee, was unavailable for comment.