We start with Torre Abbey, a monastic foundation from the 12th Century. In 1930, however, the then private owner was in financial difficulty and had to sell it to the town of Torquay (interesting history is on Wikipaedia). I just spotted what looked like bunkers as I whizzed through the photos and, indeed, they are bunkers. In 1947 (when these pictures were taken) it was, and, happily still is, a 9-hole miniature golf course, Abbey Park Golf. It may not attract golfers to make the journey to our shores across the pond but a snoop on Google Earth shows that it looks exactly the same today. Go and play that historic bunkering!
Another Porter’s Park which must have been scanned at a different time:
Pictures of Croham Hurst return:
This was described ‘Spa Golf Course Tunbridge Wells’. I should be grateful for enlightenment. I think the course survives as a 9-holer of modest dimensions and looks a little cramped but wonderfully archaic on modern Google Earth. There are rectangular greens and some (to my untutored eye) possibly murderous juxtapositions of tees and greens. I’m fascinated. The trees have grown abundantly since this, presumably 1920s, photograph.
More Wimbledon, Royal I presume:
Now Huddersfield at Fixby Hall on the north of the town close to the M62 but mercifully, out of sound range of it. Sandy Herd was the famous professional here and I’m sure he had a hand in the development of the club and course. Fowler is supposed to have had a hand in it too. All I can say is that I really ought to have played it more than the meagre once I have! I enjoyed it SO much. I was there looking at the course for a book on which I was engaged. I made advance arrangements with the club, turned up, spoke to the secretary who simply said, ‘Go out. Enjoy yourself. Write whatever you like about whatever you see and find.’ He was so confidant in the strengths of the course. He had every right to be. It isn’t a great course but it is a thoroughly good one. It is quite hilly (apparent in these photos) and there is so much variety and interest. Let’s have a GCA get together there one of these days! The photos are from 1926.
Back to Kingston-upon-Thames. The course in the top of the picture is Coombe Hill. The one at the bottom is Coombe Wood. 1926
Various Coombe Hill
I think that if you want to understand the next sequence of photos, first you have to look on Google Earth at M22 4FR. That is the postcode of Northenden Golf Club in South Manchester. There is a string of golf courses here on the banks of the River Mersey (here a mere stream, not the vast river found at Liverpool). Several of these courses have connections with MacKenzie, but when what is now the M60 (Manchester’s orbital motorway ring road) was built most of these courses suffered greatly. It’s sort of understandable in that these courses provided a flood barrier and outlet for South Manchester and there was no housing there. Immediately to the east of Northenden is Withington (MacKenzie connections), its clubhouse now just over Palatine Road – it used to be farther away. Separated from Withington by the River Mersey and to the east is Didsbury, once very MacKenzie, now seriously affected by the M60. To the north-west of Northenden is Chorlton-cum-Hardy which is on the north side of the river, while to the south of Chorlton is Sale. Sale was the home club of Dick Burton who won the 1939 Open Championship. He retained it until 1946 when Sam Snead captured it at St Andrews.
Northenden is fairly unaffected by the motorway (apart from traffic noise) and enjoys a demanding opening sequence of holes with the Mersey on the slicing side. Withington’s former clubhouse was lost to the motorway and holes on that south side. Although they were able to move north, as it were, when the motorway took the south part of their land, they have never been able to resolve a satisfactory routing. Last time I played it the back nine was 3,500+ yards. They now have a different routing, but there really isn’t a decent split of their holes. I don’t know how much Chorlton may have changed since the 1920s – little I suspect. It had quite a vogue in the early 20th Century and attracted star fields of the Vardons, Rays, Braids and co to big tournaments there. Its clubhouse is Barlow Hall, a Tudor black-and-white manor house. Poor old Sale, which had an Open Champion as professional! It is now struggling to survive. It is sandwiched between a motorway and a river you can’t see (it’s enclosed in an embankment).
These photos are from 1927.
This is part of Northenden which has a very demanding start with the Mersey a constant threat on the right.
The Mersey is a factor in the design of Didsbury, yoo.
Withington on the left, Didsbury on the right.
Sale below the river, Chorlton above it.
Part of Chorlton, which is complicated by many ditches crossing the course, mostly utilised very strategically. I don’t know who may have designed it.
A corner of Didsbury:
Northenden. Note the almost all-enveloping bunkers around some of the greens, much reduced today.
In the distance is Ringway, essentially a Colt layout, but it has had several incarnations, largely to try to get it all onto a single plot of land, thus avoiding a road crossing. It claims a Braid heritage, but it was James Braid Junior (the great man’s son) who made new 17th and 18th holes in the early 1950s. He was a member of Ringway at the time.
More to follow.