Famous Wirral golf course celebrates centenary

9th December 2011

The Warren is 100 years old this year – a time for celebration and for looking back to landmark events in the life of a well-loved club with a special place in golf.

The Wallasey course is the oldest nine-hole municipal golf club in England and it is one of the few municipals on Merseyside still with a junior golf section, reinforcing its position as an active supporter of golf for boys and girls.

Its long history was recalled by Kevin McCormack, captain in 1988 and now again for century year, at a centenary lunch.

The gathering was attended by the President of the English Golf Union, Anthony Abraham, Cheshire Union president, Roger Fielding, county secretary Stephen Foster, local civic officials and 21 past captains of the Warren.

The EGU presented Warren with a centenary plaque which will find a special place in club records and mementoes. They include a minute book of 1916 which reveals that the profit the previous year was £5 12 shillings and two pence, a pewter tray which was the captain’s prize of 1939-40, the year World War II started, and the putter that belonged to George Jellicoe, Warren’s first professional who retired in 1933.

Warren is well known as a nine hole course, but less well-known is the fact that it was, briefly, 18 holes.

The roots of the club can be traced back beyond 100 years. It was about 1896 when the residents of the prosperous area of Warren Drive, Wallasey decided to buy the farm land at the back of their homes to make a golf course.

That same year the golf course was in full use and in the years ahead the layout was extended to 18 holes.

The club remained an 18 hole course until the 1920s when George Jellicoe became concerned about the possibility that the club could lose control of part of the course on land that had been opened to the public.

It was Jellicoe’s solution to revert to a nine-hole course, in effect giving the golf club tighter control over its smaller area of land.

As with many municipals, the war brought changes. Warren was actually closed during the war when the RAF used the land for a rocket site. But it was restored to its original condition two years after the end of the war in 1947 and has continued to progress.

It is believed to be the oldest nine-hole course on municipal land in England, an interesting claim but unproven, like the idea at the Warren that Frank Stableford, who devised the points system of scoring, played at the Warren before joining Wallasey and so giving that club the proud title of “the Home of Stableford.”

The Warren members met originally in a New Brighton hotel before moving in the 1950s into a room at the Grange, a school that had closed in 1913. In the 1970s, the club applied for permission to build a club house, but when that was refused some of the past captains asked the local council if they could rent a basement area of the Grange. The council agreed and the members spent many months clearing and cleaning the area, installing new fittings and the new premises were officially opened in 1981.

This self-help effort was in the best traditions of the Warren. It operates on a system of unpaid volunteers taking care of the cleaning and other tasks around the club, such as administrative work or staffing the bar.

Also, although nine holes, its fine reputation as a great test of golf is underlined by the fact that the course record for a professional or amateur – a 68 in 1986 set by Nicky Brace, a club member who became a professional – has not been broken.

Indeed, during the centenary celebrations the captain of the private club at Crewe, also celebrating its centenary, came to visit and paid Warren the tribute of saying it was a greater test than his own club.

The Warren has produced players who have brought success on the tournament scene.

Its players won the Cheshire County Victory Foursomes in 1963 and in the following year club players came first and also second in the Cheshire Handicap Trophy.

This year it organised a visit for members to play at Myrtle Beach in South Carolina against the Kings of Soy Golf Society, who have among their numbers Michael Jordan, the basketball player and Warren member, Andrew Warrington who works in Philadelphia.

Kevin McCormack says that Warren is now one of only two municipals on Merseyside with a junior section.

The club is linked to a tri- golf scheme in Wirral and as part of its support for junior golf Tom Mather, son of the club’s junior organiser, has this year set off on a golf scholarship in America with financial support from club members.

McCormack is rightly proud of the club’s attitude to juniors. As he told his audience as the centenary dinner: “Golf is one sport that brings out the best in children. As one past captain said, golf has not only taught his boys the art of golf but also, self-discipline, etiquette, and integrity, to be able to mix not only with his peers but also with adults from various backgrounds.

McCormack concluded: “If you wish to improve society you do not need to look any further than the game of golf. We send our juniors to tournaments around Merseyside and not once have they let us down.”

The club motto on the badge, designed by the late Charles Mitchell who died in 2010 aged 98, is Floruit Floreat. Kevin McCormack provided the translation: “So we (the Warren) have flourished, so may we continue to flourish.”