The Golf Courses of the British IslesDarwin, Bernard
History
The Golf Courses of the British Isles
Darwin, Bernard
Golf courses -- Great Britain
Before finally quitting Lancashire, we must look at one inland course,
namely, =Trafford Park=, which may be accepted as the foremost among
the purely Manchester courses. I was interested and surprised to find,
in reading a little history of the Manchester Golf Club, that golf was
played in Manchester at a date so utterly prehistoric as 1818.
However, a few enthusiasts really did play upon Kersal Moor at that
remote period, and they called themselves the Manchester Golf Club.
They had no imitators till sixty-four years later, when Mr. Macalister
founded the Manchester St. Andrews Golf Club that played in Manley
Park. The birth of this second club happened almost simultaneously with
the death of the first. Kersal Moor, for all its solitary and savage
name, fell a prey to the builder, and in 1883 the original Manchester
Golf Club ceased to exist, and its name was assumed by the Manley Park
Club. Since then, it should be added, it has, happily, come to life
again under the title of the Old Manchester Golf Club.
Meanwhile, Manley Park came to share the fate of Kersal Moor, and a
move was made to Trafford Park, which has now been the home of the
Manchester Golf Club from 1893 to the present time. It has flourished
ever since, and has played a prominent part in the golfing life of
Manchester.
Trafford Park is a good course in spite of the most unpromising
surroundings. All round the fine old park, formerly the home of the de
Traffords, manufactories now raise their hideous heads, while along one
side runs the Manchester Ship Canal, and the man who desires an excuse
for a bad shot may allege that an ocean liner insisted on coming behind
him just as he was playing. These are certainly not recommendations,
but there are compensating advantages in good turf, good greens, good
length holes, and the old mansion-house, which has been converted into
one of the most comfortable and palatial of club-houses.
The turf is excellent. It is certainly not muddy, nor is it precisely
sandy. One who has played much golf at Trafford describes it as
'peaty,' and I will leave it at that. The hazards are of the usual
park description: trees, artificial bunkers, and at one hole a pond,
while the ground is pleasantly undulating for the first nine holes, and
rather too flat for the second.
We begin by driving downhill, which is always a comforting thing to
do, although we ought to have warmed to our work a little in order to
get full value out of a downhill drive. This takes us into the lower
ground, and after a moderate first we have a really good two-shot
hole for the second; well over four hundred yards long, and with a
thoroughly interesting second shot on to a raised green. The third,
which is a one-shot hole--there are four of these in all--takes us up a
hill again, and of the holes that follow the fourth and the seventh are
especially good, the former demanding a long, straight, iron shot on to
a particularly well bunkered green.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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