HISTORY (1 of 4)
The club is indebted to the late Mr. Alan Ward for the following information and photographs taken from drafts for his book giving the history of Denton Golf Club.May 1909 - Opening Fourball at the inauguration of a 9 hole course.May 1910 - The opening of the eighteen hole course, with Manchester Road in the background.January 1909 - The first meeting of Denton Golf Club was called and 69 members enrolled.
May 1909 - The first ball was hit by Mr. Fred Wilson (1st President) playing with Dr. W. MacGill (1st Captain), Mr W. Anderson (professional) and Mr. W. Leaver (Course designer and professional at Worsley).
May 1910 - The course was extended to 18 holes and Denton Golf Club was registered under the Companies Act on 22nd March 1911.
The club originally operated from the Cottage at 8 Jackson Street (now the site of the M60 island and slip road). Then in June 1911 a new clubhouse was built on the course at a cost of £1,300. This was opened by Sir Bosdin Leech, Chairman of the Waterworks Committee. Sadly the largely wooden constructed clubhouse caught fire on January 22nd 1922 and was completely destroyed. With it went most of the records of the first 13 years of the club.
In less than a year a new clubhouse was built at a cost of £4,000 and in December 1922 this was opened by Dr. W. MacGill. Although built quickly no expense was spared with parquet flooring and extensive oak panelling it rivalled the finest clubhouses of its time. However, once more fate dealt a cruel blow. On October 13th 1940 a German bomber missed the chip shop and instead blew up the clubhouse! Fortunately, the golf club had closed half an hour earlier and all members had left. The steward, Mr. Albert Tooke and his wife escaped unhurt, as their upstairs living room was largely undamaged. The clubhouse itself was rendered uninhabitable and remained so for the next ten years as a general wartime shortage of construction material led to the denial of building permission.
