Manchester Golf Club

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Manchester Golf Club at Hopwood Park is an 18 hole Championship course, which is a mixture of parkland and moorland set in some 240 acres. It totals 6,490 yards with SSS 72. It presents a real challenge to the low handicap golfer, yet the yellow course, 6,235 yards SSS 70 also offers a choice to suit all handicaps. The course of the Manchester Golf Club at Hopwood is laid out on a ridge of wild and rugged moorland half-way between Manchester and Rochdale. It is the sort of country one expects to find among the hills of Lakeland rather than seven miles from the Cotton capital. The rolling plateau, broken up by woods of sycamore and birch, and divided into two by a wide irregular ravine with a brook winding through the bottom of it, makes ideal golfing ground. Innumerable minor gullies and other under-features contribute to the adventurous quality of the holes. The wild hitter will often find himself in real 'tiger country' of bushes and bracken. And the course as a whole, with a total length of 6,490 yards, provides as stiff a test as is to be found in British inland golf. Hopwood is not the Manchester Club's original home. When the Club was founded, as long ago as 1882, by Mr. John Macalister, its course was at Manley Park. From there it removed to Old Trafford, and it was not until a few years before the First World War that it entered into possession of its present delightful home at Hopwood Park. The Club House is actually the Cottage built in connection with Hopwood Hall. It stands in a secluded corner just off the main Manchester-Rochdale road, about a mile to the north of Middleton, so that it is within easy access of Manchester by road. The course provides a fine test for any class of golfer. Three holes of round about 500 yards and three more of 450-470 yards allow ample opportunities for the big hitter, but big hitting by itself will not earn low scores at Manchester. In this boldly undulating country it is continually necessary to place our shots so as to leave ourselves with as simple a problem as possible for our next, and the course will always favour the player who has the brains to look a move or two ahead of the game. However, the weaker golfer will find that the difficulties of the course do not bear unduly heavily upon him. The two shot holes are mostly within two-shot distance for any class of player, provided be can pull out the right shots.

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