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About the Club
Stockport Golf Club was founded in 1905, moving to its present site at Torkington in August 1909. Importantly, great care was taken in building the course, which has ensured that it remains a fine test of golf to this day. The design was by the former Open Champion, Sandy Herd, but it was the club’s first Professional, Peter Barrie, who supervised construction, fine-tuning every aspect of the layout to produce a thinking-man’s course with plenty of variety and a good deal of subtlety.
At under 6,400 yards in length with a par of 71, the course might, at first sight, seem to be on the short side for the modern game, yet it has proved robust enough to withstand the onslaughts of powerful fields of professionals and amateurs in five Open Championship Regional Qualifying Tournaments. The course has also played host to numerous county championships and inter-county matches. Many great professionals have graced Stockport’s fairways, including Harry Vardon, James Braid, JH Taylor, Henry Cotton, Alf Padgham, Dave Thomas, Eric Brown, Peter Butler, Bernard Hunt, Neil Coles and Dai Rees. However, the most distinguished visitors to Stockport were surely the American Ryder Cup team of 1929, who played a team of gifted local amateurs and only just managed to beat them because of a dogged late fight-back by the great Walter Hagen.
Although the course retains its original routing there have been recent changes to the bunkering and the many thousands of trees which have been planted over the last half-century have matured to give each fairway seclusion and beauty. No expense has been spared to ensure that the course is always presented in exemplary condition, and visitors are assured of a warm welcome at the club.
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