Forget Celtic Manor, Welshpool is 'Club of Dreams’

 

Welshpool Golf Club could be set for a Ryder Cup fillip after the man regarded as the world’s greatest ever golf writer described it as his ‘Golf Club of Dreams’.

 

Bernard Darwin is credited with ‘inventing’ golf writing and was raised by his famous granddad, naturalist Charles Darwin, but it is some incredible quotes, which have re-surfaced 49 years after his death, that could provide the iconic Golfa Club with a Ryder Cup shot in the arm.

 

Born in 1876, Darwin was raised by his illustrious grandfather following the death of his mother soon after birth, and went on to become a prolific golf writer for The Times.

 

Having travelled extensively to cover tournaments and to play the world’s top courses of his time, Darwin, who has been inducted into the USA’s Golf Hall of Fame, claimed in his journals that Welshpool provided his ‘Golf Club of Dreams’.

 

“How incomplete has been my golfing education until I had seen it,” said Darwin, who died in 1961, aged 85.

 

His comments have now come to light and have been heavily used by sports travel operators promoting Wales as a golf destination to Americans who are set to invade the country in the wake of this weekend’s Ryder Cup.

 

His incredible endorsement to Welshpool can be linked to his friendship with the Golfa’s designer James Braid – the man credited for designing two championship courses at Gleneagles and the 1926 remodelling of the infamous Carnoustie Golf Links.

 

He was also a regular traveler to the family escape in Aberdovey where he described the course there as his spiritual home. Ironically, Llanymynech’s golf hero Ian Woosnam once reckoned that his great grandfather – a ticket collector on the Cambrian Rail Line – may have chatted with Darwin en-route.

 

Built at the turn of the 20th Century, Welshpool Golf Club is one of the most picturesque in Wales and could cash in on the Ryder Cup at Celtic Manor, Newport. It is located three miles out of the town on the Llanfair Road and provides a challenging test of stamina and skill, but its panoramic views of Mid Wales make it an iconic sporting location.

 

It has already received more than £13,000 for a new practice area and junior tees from a £2m Ryder Cup Wales Legacy Fund provided by the Welsh Assembly Government as part of its bid pledge.