Story of a Golf Club: Formby Ladies Golf Club In our latest episode of our ‘Story of a Golf Club’ series, we are back on England’s Golf Coast to visit the lesser known of the two Formby courses, Formby Ladies. We wanted to spend time at Formby Ladies given its unique standing in the game. The only Ladies only golf club in the UK with its own 18 hole course (the nearest example would perhaps be the Himalaya’s putting course at St Andrews), the fact that it has only one set of tee’s and plays over a short distance at approx.. 5,300 yards.  Formby Ladies was formed back in 1896 when a flourishing and forward thinking ladies section decided they wanted their own course, to run their competitions and formed their own club. Considering the era, this was a bold and brave decision and testament to the foresight [...]

In Episode 5 of our ‘Story of a Golf Club’ series, we return to the famous Surrey sand-belt to visit the youngest member of the great quartet of clubs in the area: The Berkshire. This heathland was once a dense forest which hosted the Royal hunting trips organised by Queen Anne in the 18th century, along with nearby Swinley Forest. After much of the timber was cleared in 1916 to support the British effort in the First World War, Herbert Fowler surveyed the 400-acre estate on horseback, and his two designs were finally brought to life in 1928. He paid homage to the land’s military heritage by simply naming them The Red and The Blue, symbolic of two opposing sides in battle. Although Fowler had little experience in course design prior to 1904, his work on Walton Heath brought him huge plaudits across Europe, prompting Bernard Darwin to [...]