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Our Heritage
Upstairs in the Clubhouse lounge are mounted these old golf clubs and 'featherie' golf balls. They were presented to the Club by a member of the founding Ruck family, who wrote of them: "Set of golf clubs actually played with.....at Aberdovey about the year 1882". Over 125 years later, we are pleased still to have descendents of the founders as Members of our Club.
The earliest course boasted no more than nine holes, these being flower pots sunk into the turf. However there was soon a realisation as to just how splendid the links land was and the Club was founded in 1892 with the first 18 hole course measuring some 5,540 yards.
Over the years the Club has been graced by many famous visitors; Taylor and Braid in the very early days and, much more recently, we are proud to have Ian Woosnam and Peter Baker, respectively Captain and Vice-Captain of the 2006 European Ryder Cup team, amongst our Members. They, like others before them, have come to appreciate the challenge of the links and the warmth of the welcome that Aberdovey bestows.
Perhaps the Member who made the greatest impact upon the Club over many, many years was Bernard Darwin. He has frequently been described as the father of sports writers and set new standards of golf writing. His books remain valuable collectors' items even now. A grandson of the famous naturalist, Charles Darwin, it was Darwin's uncle who had first played golf on the Aberdovey links. As a child he witnessed the creation of the original Aberdovey course and, throughout his long and distinguished career as golf correspondent for The Times and Country Life, and in his many classic books on the game, he wrote frequently and lyrically about the delights of golf at Aberdovey. In his own words Aberdovey was the course that his "soul loved best of all the courses in the world" and "about this one course in the world, I am a hopeless and shameful sentimentalist and I glory in my shame".
Over the years that the Club has existed it has played host to many National and International competitions. The Welsh Seniors' Championship has made Aberdovey its usual home and, redolent of the Darwin era, the Welsh Hickory Championships are also held annually here. With British Ladies' Home Internationals, and WGU Championships hosted over the years, Aberdovey truly is a fine test of links golf.
For those who wish to find out more about Aberdovey Golf Club and its place in the history of golf in Wales, we commend to you two books:
- "Aberdovey Golf Club - a Round of a Hundred Years" - ISBN0 9511301 0 2
- "Bernard Darwin and Aberdovey" - ISBN 0 907 186 807