Looking Back: Sherdley Park Golf Course's 50th anniversary

St Helens' first municipal course allowed anyone to play a round of golf without having to become a member of a club.

Council bosses hoped the much-needed facility would run without a hitch – unlike the park's driving range.

The 10-bay range had opened a year earlier but had been plagued by little boys who quickly found a new way to make money!

Four months after its opening in May 1972 the council admitted losing 400 golf balls a week.

Despite a 5 foot-high spiked fence that enclosed the range, kids were still managing to nip over and nick balls before staff could retrieve them.

Ted Gallagher, the council's Deputy Director of Parks, said: "On one occasion, we chased off two young children who were collecting the balls in two haversacks.

"They had picked up about 200."

Shortage of golf balls

There was a nationwide shortage of golf balls during the summer of 1972 and manufacturers were rationing supplies. So the youngsters were finding a ready market for their ill-gotten golfing gains at 10p a time.

The driving range allowed golfers to blaze away at 60 balls for the price of 35p.

And then a year after it opened the first half of the new 18-hole golf course was completed. The council was forced to wait until Joseph Frith's lease to run Sherdley Hall Farm had expired before making the full course available to the golf-playing public.

It had been in 1949 when St Helens Corporation acquired Sherdley Park from the Hughes family and began developing it as a leisure facility. The farm on the estate was leased off and a miniature pitch and putt course created.

Controversy over Sunday sport

In August 1961 "Dean Plays Golf On Sunday" was the headline to an article in the Guardian. The piece described how the Dean of St Helens, the Very Rev Hugh Fitzpatrick, had controversially played miniature golf on the Sabbath in Sherdley Park. That was to give his stamp of approval to the Corporation's decision to permit some Sunday sport in their parks – which other church leaders were against.

The popularity of the mini course led to demands for a fully-fledged facility. The private Grange Park Golf Club was overcrowded and difficult to join and in October 1968 St Helens Council approved John Jarman's blueprints.

The pro golfer at Grange Park had designed a new 9-hole course for Sherdley Park with a driving range of 3,100 yards that, he said, would "test the experienced golfer, but not be too exacting for the beginner".

The cost was calculated as £63,801 and in February 1973 the playing prices were set as 30p on weekdays and 40p at weekends.

Then in March it was announced that Peter Parkinson would be Sherdley's first pro golfer. The 25-year-old was in the Guinness Book of Records as the British record holder for the longest hole-in-one – a 393-yard shot in 1972.

On April 18th 1973 the Mayor of St Helens, Cllr Allan Lycett, officially opened the new course by teeing off. One newspaper wrote: "His drive down the fairway to the first of the nine holes, was watched by delighted councillors and Corporation officials. With one stroke he officially opened the golf course and luxurious clubhouse at Sherdley Park."

Harry Williams was one of those delighted councillors and commented: "I'm no golfer myself. But the point is, I could be. And I wouldn't have to join a club. Every member of the public has an equal right to use this course."

Once the farm lease expired the planned 9-hole extension could begin and in May 1976 the course became 18 holes. Sherdley's golf pro Peter Parkinson said at the time: "For a municipal course, it is very well bunkered. One bunker on the new section is so deep you cannot see out of it once you get inside. It is going to become known among the local golfing fraternity as 'Hell fire bunker'."

Stephen Wainwright's latest book 'The Hidden History Of St Helens Vol 2' is available from the St Helens Book Stop and the World of Glass and online from eBay and Amazon (free delivery). Volume 1 of 'Hidden History' is also still available.