Matlock

Matlock Golf Club was founded in 1906 but the official opening of the course took place the following year, on 17 May 1907, according to the Derbyshire Advertiser & Journal, when Colonel H. Brooke-Taylor drove the inaugural tee shot, rewarding a local lad who retrieved his ball with a customary gold sovereign.

The same day, exhibition matches were played in the morning and afternoon between George Duncan, Sandy Herd, Harry Vardon and Notts Golf Club professional Tom Williamson who designed the layout. Tom remained in post at his club for more than fifty years and during that time he was involved in laying out dozens of courses around the Midlands.

The Bentley Brook wanders throughout the layout and there are still the remnants of several stone dykes – reduced in height and now covered in grass – to be found at holes such as the 3rd, 13th and 16th. The monolith Cuckoostone standing next to a hawthorn tree on the 11th fairway is incorporated into the design of a rather unusual club logo.

Feature holes on this windswept moorland beauty include the 179-yard 10th, with professional Christian Goodman saying “many visitors cite this as Matlock's signature hole. An elevated tee gives a panoramic view of the task – a shot across a ravine of ferns, heather and gorse to a green cut into the hillside and protected by bunkers front right and side left. ”