History of Longridge Golf Club & Preston Cycling Club

Part 4 - An Era of Change

Fig 4 The change in the title of the club to Longridge Golf Club and Preston Cycling Club seemed to set in motion a whole new way of thinking. Forgotten at last were those doughty Victorians and Edwardians who had set out to create a club far from the madding wife. The new generation of golfers wanted, and had a right to expect, the kind of creature comforts that would have been almost beyond belief for their forbears. There was a vision of a comfortable golf club being brought well and truly into the twentieth century.
The first stage of development came in 1963 with the building of a ladies’ room, dining room and a new bar. The guiding light in this project was the captain of the time, Norman Page, who also acted as clerk of works. The actual building work was also carried out by another member, Herbert Forrest.

But any further plans had to be shelved as the money ran out, and with only about 200 members at the time, there seemed little likelihood of further expansion within the foreseeable future.

However,four years later, John Smith, an accountant, became treasurer of the club, and much of the credit for the subsequent development of the course and clubhouse must go to his diligence and financial expertise. Ten years later he was to lead the golf club into its centenary year as captain.

Finding the capital to realize the vision was no easy task. At the time, the club was in the red at the bank, and there seemed to be no obvious solution. Certainly, it was hardly feasible for the members to finance the full amount if the club was to grow both inside and out.

The development committee had already negotiated a purchase price of £4,650 for an adjoining 56 acres of the Derby Estate on which to build an additional nine holes. They had also done their sums on other phases of the development. With the help of Phil Mowbray, who was to oversee all architectural plans, they arrived at a figure of £3,312 for the building extensions to Fell Barn.

Fig 5 Ray Birkbeck was “Clerk of Works, Golf Course” and from his contact with a local contractor, the development committee was able to estimate a figure of £3,292 for the essential outside work that would need to be done on the new holes, plus £1072 for the new machinery to maintain the course.
Cutting all expenses to a bare minimum, it all added up to £12,400- a seemingly impossible target to a club that was already overdrawn at the bank. But, then, since its earliest days as Preston Cycling Club, the members had surmounted seemingly unconquerable mountains with an attitude of self-endeavour. It was possible to, they decided, to raise half the money for themselves, but it might take an act of divine intervention to find the other half.

In fact what it took was a lot of hard work by Mr. Smith and Mr. Mowbray. They opened up lines of communication with the Lancashire Playing Fields Association, and after many hours of meetings and a mass of correspondence, an application for a 50% grant was eventually submitted to the North West Regional Sports Council, who were later to make an additional grant of £441- half the cost of laying on a mains water supply to Fell Barn.

At the same time, the members themselves had already embarked on the massive task of raising the additional £6,200 without which the grant could not be approved. Everybody played their part, either by supporting a whole new range of social events in the club, or by organizing “bring and buy” sales and other fund-raising activities, or simply by making a direct loan to the club funds. And so, week-by-week, the development fund grew until the great day that the target had been achieved.

In February 1970 the Regional Sports Council gave final approval to the grant- and now the real work could begin.
Within days, the building contractors moved in to start work on the new locker room. The weather was all against them, yet within six weeks the job was completed and ready for the dawning season.

And work began too, on what must have seemed the most mountainous project- the building of the new holes and the reorganization of the existing course. Despite the grant, funds were minimal, and in true Longridge tradition, it was obviously going to be a case once again of “if you want a job doing well, do it yourself”.

There was one job, however, that the members had neither the machinery nor the expertise to tackle- the laying of the new greens. This task was given to a local contractor who also lacked experience, but under the watchful eyes of Ray Birkbeck and greenkeeper John Nicholson the donkey work of laying the basis of the new greens was successfully completed.
Meanwhile, almost anybody who could be coerced into lending a hand found himself involved in the shaping of the new course. Working at weekends and in their spare time, the members laid 11 new tees and got down to the back-breaking task of clearing the land of rocks and stones. Not only was the land liberally scattered with rock that would have meant sudden death to the new machinery, but dry stone walls had to be dismantled and carted away.

But little by little, the holes started to take shape, and it must have been with immense satisfaction that the members were eventually able to sit back and rely on the providence of a growing season to complete their labours. Building nine new holes had involved the moving of nearly 6,000 tons of stone, and the laying of nearly 1,000 tons of cinders, nearly 5,000 tons of topsoil, 9,650 square yards of turf and over 8,000-field tiles- as well as a lot of sweat.

August 28, 1971, dawned far from auspiciously with a strong wind and lashing rain. But the weather did nothing to dampen the spirits of the members of Longridge Golf Club and Preston Cycling Club. For this was President’s Day, and it was also the day that the course opened its 18 holes for the first time. It was 5,886 yards long, with a par of 71, and the President, the same Norman Page who had begun the reshaping of the club’s destiny in 1963 and had guided the members through this latest development, and all those others who had worked so hard on the construction of the new course, knew that the club had really come of age.

Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3 / Part 5