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Recognition for changing face of Bidston course

Oct 30 2007 by Our Correspondent, Liverpool Daily Post

Bidston Golf Club

ONE OF Merseyside’s less well-known, but delightful and friendly golf clubs, long overshadowed by its bigger, more famous neighbours, has made a major advance in its status and reputation.

Bidston has been recognised in a prestigious ranking of golf courses in Golf Monthly‘s review of the 120 top venues. While Bidston is not in that leading category, it has now been identified as among the excellent courses in the UK and Ireland outside that top 120, but still deserving recognition.

“It is a great achievement, fantastic,” says John Morris, a council member, former captain of Bidston and my playing partner during a recent visit. “We are part of the Society of Liverpool Golf Captains, with representatives from 27 clubs, and we are the only one to get this award. It is very much based on consideration of the quality of the course and particularly the greens.”

The evaluations are carried out by grass roots golfers working from an official handbook of guidelines. Michael Harris, Editor of Golf Monthly, says: “We believe rankings are a most useful guide for golfers who want a great day out as well as a serious golfing challenge.”

Bidston, indeed, provides both. The par 70 SSS offers a fair challenge to the experienced but will not overwhelm the beginner.

Also the visitor will travel far to find a more friendly, welcoming club.

The warm reception began in the clubhouse, at the counter to ask for a cup of tea and a sandwich. “You a visitor?” the golfer behind asked. “Let me get that for you.” Then at the first a lady was putting her golf ball on the tee when she said: “Sorry. Didn’t realise you were a visitor. Do go first.”

The first is a par-4, only 264 yards but a tough start with a pond on the right, an out-of-bounds on the left and a well-protected green with grassy mounds ready to snatch any wayward ball.

The second par-3 needs a carry over the first encounter with the River Birkett and then, as the driver comes out for the first time, the third and fourth are difficult holes with out-of-bounds and some of the hundreds of trees that have been put down in plantations around the course. The fifth is the only par-5 in the first nine, a 510-yard dog-leg, often into the wind, with out-of-bounds on one side and the now familiar trees and plantations on both.

The eighth is stroke index one with water and an out of bounds, “as tough a hole as you will ever play when the wind is blowing,” say Bidston. Finding the fairway is a relief but even then there is a difficult approach to the green.

Two par-4s open the second nine, the first a long way and via a narrow gap through the trees and the next bordered by out-of-bounds. The 15th is the par-5 on the second nine, 511 yards off the white tee, again with the trap of an out-of bounds.

The 16th, named Shady Nook, is a gem. The scorecard reads par-3, 158 yards from the white tee but that provides no clues to the test ahead. The ball needs to carry over two stretches of the River Birkett and also there is more water on the left. A well-struck and accurate iron shot is demanded but if the carry is too long there is trouble in the deep grass and in the four bunkers around the green.

Shady Nook will be words familiar to golfers of senior years. “By a babbling brook,” (in a shady nook) was a big hit record and the signature tune of Donald Peers, one of the early British pop stars. Local gossip suggests that Peers played golf at Bidston but it is an unconfirmed story.

A par-4 following this potentially card-wrecking hole followed by a worthy finish, a dog-legged par-4 where the approach shot has to avoid the trees the ditch and bunkers around the green.