Club News

The Car Care Plan International at Moortown was one of eight regular European Tour events in 1985. There was also The Open at Royal St George’s, which would be won by Sandy Lyle, and the Ryder Cup at The Belfry which saw a first non-American win for the first time in 28 years.

The previous year Sir Nick Faldo would prevail at Moortown, 12 months later Midlander DJ Russell would come out on top. It would be his first win on tour and he would do it with a winning score of one over in a top 10 that was decorated by the likes of Sandy Lyle, Ian Woosnam, David Feherty and Sam Torrance.

Russell remains one of the more unassuming and amusing names in the game. These days, along with his good friend and old sparring partner Ian Woosnam, he has his own golf course design company which features a portfolio that includes Archerfield Links and The Machrie.

Here he looks back on his breakthrough win at Moortown and playing the bulk of his tournament golf during the absolute golden era of European golf.

When would you have first played Moortown? 

I first played in 1980 in the Haig Whisky when Bernard Gallagher won and I did OK when Nick Faldo won the year before me. One of my stand-out memories of playing in Leeds came at the Car Care at Moor Allerton in 1982 when I played the last round with Greg Norman and Sandy Lyle. It’s fair to say that I always shunned the limelight a bit so I got on the 1st tee and it was Greg Norman, winner of this, winner of that. Then it was Sandy Lyle, winner of this, winner of that. And I was last at DJ Russell. So, as small as I felt walking onto the tee, I felt even smaller walking off it.

What did your early years look like as a European Tour pro?

I turned pro at the end of 1973 and, because I hadn’t played as a full England international, I actually wasn’t allowed to win any prize money for the first two years. So I played in a few sort of overseas events as I wasn’t even allowed to play in the British events. If you hadn’t been a full international, there were so many restrictions on you at that stage in the sort of early to mid-70s. So then I went and did my PGA training in 1975.

I was then sort of let loose on the tour but it took me five or six years to genuinely make a living from playing. To boost my income I would work in a men’s fashion shop for a friend of mine in the winters and other bits and bobs and I did a bit of coaching to just kept going. I didn’t have any money by any means but it didn’t seem that important back in the 70s.

It costs such a lot of money to play on the different tours these days but the first time I really went into Europe I went by the car with a caravan. We drove to Portugal, down to the Algarve, to Madrid, to La Manga, to Italy, and then back up to Paris. We didn’t really make any money but it was fantastic fun. We played it for all the right reasons then. The money was obviously an important part of it but there wasn’t really that much money about.

1985 was the year when the European Tour didn’t have their own pre-qualifying rounds and the final two rounds of all the big events were played as twoballs and not in threes?

Yeah, that was the first full-exempt year. Before that it was the top 60 who were exempt and then there was Monday qualifying. That’s where Ian Woosnam and I became such good friends. That really blossomed when we were actually particularly good at the Monday qualifying and we would be the last ones standing – and then we weren’t particularly good when we got to the tournament so then we’d be back at the Monday qualifying. We finished up travelling a lot together in those days. It took me at least six years playing on tour to get the hang of it.

The Car Care at Moortown was the fourth event on the calendar in May, do you remember being hopeful of a big week?

I started the year quite well. I finished 34th in Tunisia, then I was 24th in Madrid and then 11th in Italy and all of these were consecutive weeks. It was certainly difficult, it was quite cold and the greens hadn’t really come out of winter properly and were a little bit bobbly. All of which suited me as a lot of the players had been playing in America so they’d come from perfect conditions back to the early spring of Yorkshire. It was certainly a big tournament and Sandy and Nick were the big names and you had Howard Clark was the big local name. It was on Grandstand over the weekend and it definitely felt like a big tournament.

Did you enjoy the style of the course?

I enjoyed links courses and I think that I did better on the classic courses rather than the modern ones and Moortown was very much a classic golf course. On the classics you have to use the ground a little bit more whereas the modern courses are more designed on a piece of paper and plonked onto the land. You can sort of plot your way around those whereas on the classics there’s a lot more feel involved in the shots that you have to play into the greens.

What other bits around the week do you remember?

I stayed at home in Derby and would travel up every day. Kenny Burns, the footballer, was playing for Derby at the time and he didn’t have a game so he came up with me for the Saturday. On our way back we

stopped for a cup of tea on the M1 and somebody said about the Bradford fire disaster and I vividly remember chatting to Kenny about that. Ewen Murray had played in the morning and was actually at the game and he had to sort of dive onto the pitch.

You were tied for the lead with Wayne Riley going into the final round, how comfortable were you when you were in front?

I definitely lacked confidence when I was put into the limelight. One time I was leading after two rounds in Zambia and I shot 87 and missed the third-round cut. So in the early days I had a mental block in making the last-round cut. I’d always been a good player but, whether it was anxiety of whatever, I wasn’t great on the big stage. I think it was Wayne’s first tournament in Europe, he’d just come over from Australia and he absolutely wasn’t used to the cold as he had a big woolly hat on.

What do you remember of the final round?

I remember the par-3 10th and I just remember hitting fantastic shots into that all week. It was always a difficult hole but the ball kept homing in on the pin every day, it was brilliant. I certainly played it in under par and that probably contributed to me winning it. I remember hitting a lot of long irons that week because it was just so damp underfoot and we started with a pair of par 5s and it was a par of 69.

I also remember Wayne having a bit of a meltdown on 15 having just double-bogeyed it and I said to him ‘Come on Wayne, you’re only a shot behind, anything can happen from here’.

Carl Mason had finished on two over after a 66 so I knew that I had to par the last three and then the next hole I chipped in. The 16th was playing particularly difficult and I’d come up short of the green and I chipped it in so it was me who got the bit of the break rather than him.

It’s on YouTube now and the approach to 18 was a bit lucky, I always thought that I’d hit a good shot! Then there was a lag down the hill but I still had to hole a shortish one which I took a while over before rolling it in. I remember Woosie collaring me coming off the 18th and there being some great crowds and the TV cameras. I was playing somewhere last year and David Howell came up to me and said that I was a big inspiration for him, watching on TV. And I didn’t even realise, I’ve known David for years, and it was the first time he’d ever said that to me. If you played well back then, you were on TV quite a lot.

Was the big hope that you might make Tony Jacklin’s Ryder Cup team later in the year?

Yeah, I got close in 1985 and I was very disappointed not to make the team. It was my own fault, I missed the qualifying for the Open Championship and, if I’d have had a half decent Open, I could have been automatic.

I think I finished 11th on the list. But obviously Tony Jacklin had selections to make from that.

I was qualifying at Littlestone for the Open at Royal St George’s. I was playing brilliantly and I came back in 46 and then lost in a play-off to get in. Brad Faxon writes about it in his book, it was us two and Tony Johnstone. Tony started chucking a few clubs about and I started three and four putting. My career was a catalogue of disasters interspersed by a few good bits.

Did winning change anything?

I still found it difficult as I knew that I had to deal with it and it made me very nervous. I always remember playing in the Open at Lytham in 1988 and I was doing quite well and I got drawn with Jack Nicklaus in the third round. I never slept all night, it was the most nervous thing that was ever going to happen to me on a golf course but the Saturday was then washed out.

They did a re-draw and I really didn’t want to play with Jack because of the limelight. Anyway I got drawn with him again so I had to play with him even though, if someone had offered me not to, I would have snapped their hand off to save myself going through it all.

I played the first nine hole in 29. He was wonderful, he just couldn’t believe that he’d never heard of me.

Seve, Faldo and Nick Price ran away with it but I was hanging about for quite a long time. Then I double-bogeyed the last hole on the last day to go from like fifth to 11th.

Can you give us a flavour of how different the tour was in the 80s?

The incredible thing was back in the day, there weren’t many coaches around. We all learned it together. It was an amazing era. You’d have everybody on the practice ground helping each other out really and we’d give each other little tips to try out.

You couldn’t study your own swing but you could study other people’s swings and then you tried to imitate or put things in that they did. We all thought that we knew what we were doing but then when you saw your swing on camera, you could never believe that was you.

It was all just a massive journey together. The great thing was there’s a lot of good friends of mine who have been successful in many other ways away from golf because they found out very quickly whether they were good enough. The danger now is you can take to about 40 to realise, actually, I’m not going to make it at this.

You’d go to Madrid for Monday qualifying and there might be 160 of you going for eight spots. It was madness really, if you think about it, but you very quickly learnt whether you had the nerve for it or not. What a great learning curve.

I did win again in 1992, after another trip to the Q School, and I packed up playing on the tour in 1996 and went as a club pro at Kedleston Park. And now I’ve turned into a golf course designer so it’s been an incredible journey. I know that I could have done things better in places and maybe couldn’t have done it better in other places but it’s been a wonderful career and Moortown was definitely one of the massive highlights of it all.

Mark Townsend February 2025 

After the success of last year’s academies, Moortown will be again running two women’s academies next summer aimed at new golfers (Stage 1) and golfers with some experience or returning to golf (STAGE 2).

Stage 1 – Women’s Summer Academy 2025 Stage 1

Stage 2 –  Women’s Summer Academy 2025 Stage 2

Our old 12th Hole Features in Jeremy Ellwood’s recent article in Golf Monthly highlighting UK&I lost par 3s.

Gone But Not Forgotten: We Take A Tour Around Some Of The UK&I’s Lost Par 3s

R&A Boys Amateur Highlights

Viggo Olsson Mork of Sweden poses following his victory over Scott Woltering of the Netherlands during the Final on day six of The R&A Boys’ Amateur Championship at Moortown Golf Club on August 17, 2024.(Photo by Cameron Smith/R&A/R&A via Getty Images)

The roll call of winners in the Boys and Girls Amateur Championships reads like a who’s who of golf with a host of future Major champions landing the R&A’s junior showpiece. We’ve seen Solheim Cup stars such Georgia Hall, Anna Nordqvist, Azahara Munoz and this year’s captain Suzann Pettersen emerge victorious while, in the boys’ championship, Jose Maria Olazabal, Sergio Garcia and more recently Hallamshire’s Matt Fitzpatrick have landed the prestigious title.

This year an international field of 288 hopefuls will tee it up at Leeds’ two leading courses with the girls heading to Alwoodley while Moortown will host the boys. The first two days will feature 36 holes of strokeplay across the two Dr Alister MacKenzie masterpieces, with the leading 64 players then competing in a matchplay format before the 36-hole finals on Saturday August 17.

The boys’ version, which has been played for since 1921, offers exemptions into the Amateur Championship and Final Qualifying for The Open while the girls’ winner has the huge incentive of a place at the Augusta National Women’s Amateur (ANWA) a week ahead of next year’s Masters.

Kris Kim 2023 Boys Amateur Champion

Lottie Woad, another previous winner of the Girls Amateur, became this year’s winner at Augusta after three birdies over the last four holes over the most iconic back nine in the game.

Moortown’s Josh Stephens, who captains the Yorkshire boys’ team this year, will attempt to make it to the strokeplay stages in a pre-qualifier on Saturday. The 17-year-old has been here before when he lost on countback at Fulford which meant an opening day sitting on the sidelines waiting for a withdrawal that didn’t happen.

Former Champion Matt Fitzpatrick

“The first reserve got in, I was second reserve and spent the day on the 1st tee at Fulford and practising in case I got a chance. It was still a great experience, just seeing the R&A boards it just feels different. They got the course in unreal condition and I heard the same about Ganton – they manage to take the courses to another level. I see a lot of the lads week in, week out and I actually just want to see what they do around my home course. I don’t think we go to a place that’s harder. Moortown is such an incredible course off the back tees and you have to drive the ball so well,” explains Stephens.

Stephens is part of a thriving junior section which has helped see his handicap plummet – he was off 13 at the start of 2020 and is now down to +2 – and he’s been coached by Moortown’s Assistant Pro Eddie Hammond since he was 10.

“Growing up, I couldn’t reach the par 4s in two around here so I relied on my short game a lot. I got down to 3 and I wasn’t hitting it more than 220 yards. Also, growing up with so many strong juniors has really benefited my game. There was always a chipping competition going on or you would see things in older boys’ games which you could implement or we would play for a fiver over our own four-round tournaments. So it was always a very high standard plus the members have always been fantastic in having the juniors as part of their club competitions and they couldn’t have been more supportive.”

This will be the fifth time that Moortown has staged the Boys Amateur, the last of which came in 1972. Then Scotland’s Garry Harvey was victorious having lost in the final the previous year to an up-and-coming Yorkshire star in Howard Clark at Barassie.

Harvey’s hands will bizarrely be familiar to every golf fan on the planet in that he is the engraver of the Claret Jug at The Open where, a few weeks ago, he would add the name Xander Schauffele to the game’s most famous piece of silverware.

Back in 1972 he would engrave his own name onto the trophy after a crushing victory over England’s Bob Newsome.

“I remember some of the course but I have a vivid memory of the snooker table in the clubhouse and a guy hitting it through the window and having to play their recovery from there as it wasn’t then out of bounds. The other big memory was that I didn’t want to be the player who lost in the final twice. Winning the Boys was a big thing for me, it was the absolute pinnacle of the junior game,” said Harvey who would go on to win the Kenya Open in 1985.

Live scoring is available on the R&A website, spectators are welcome – R&A Boys Amateur Championship Website

https://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/sport/other-sport/opportunity-knocks-as-youngsters-aim-to-land-prestigious-titles-at-moortown-and-alwoodley-4735983

2024 Rules of Handicap update for club members

On the 1st of April 2024, The changes to WHS™ Rules of Handicapping & Course Rating™ standards will take effect in England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland. Your Club handicap committee are the first point of contact for any WHS™ queries. They have access to the required resource(s) and tools to ensure they can support the membership at their club. To ensure the golfer understands the impact of the changes on their game, below is a summary of each change.

2024 Rules of Handicap update for Club Members

At the General Committee meeting of 22 January 2024, Anne Weston was duly appointed as the Club’s new Welfare Officer.

To view the Club’s safeguarding policy and procedure documents, please follow the below links –

MGC Child Safeguarding Policy and Procedures

MGC Adults Safeguarding Policy and Procedures

Club Welfare Officer – Anne Weston

Contact – [email protected]

Moortown has been re-awarded the Golf Environmental Organisation accreditation for its outstanding work to foster nature, conserve resources and support the community. The club has been certified since 2018 and it is renewed every five years.

GEO Certified is the most respected certification for golf, based on a credibly and transparently developed modern sustainability standard of best practice.

“Moortown is an excellent example of a club whose operations are managed sustainably. The maintenance of cool season grasses, minimising the use of water, fertiliser and pesticides as far as possible, is laudable. The high-quality heathland restoration, which is ongoing, mark the club out as a leader in environmental good practice on the course,” explained the GEO.

“In addition, their drive to reduce resource consumption and increase energy efficiency, across all their operations, adds to their impressive demonstration of what golf clubs can do to deliver sustainable outcomes. We commend their efforts,”

The club was reported to have met the required certification criteria for sustainable golf operations, successfully completed the official third-party verification process and passed the final evaluation by GEO Certification Ltd.

The aims of the GEO are to further improve golf’s social, environmental and climate contribution, enhance the game’s image, reputation and resilience and to help golf fulfil its potential to inspire and guide millions of followers. The not-for-profit organisation was established over 15 years ago with the sole purpose of helping accelerate sustainability in and through golf.

The Club is understandably proud to have the GEO re-verification and is delighted that this national accreditation recognises the outstanding work of Course Manager Steve Robinson and his staff in terms of the environment.

This year Annie Bailey joined Moortown as the new Assistant Secretary/Manager. We spoke to her about her golfing journey and her talented family

You come from a family of golfers?

My Dad Ian is a PGA professional at Kirby Muxloe in Leicestershire. My sister Lianna plays on the Access Series on the Ladies European Tour, my sister Jess is off +3 and wants to turn pro, she’s at college in the States, and my other sister Ellie is at university in Leeds and she plays off 3. My brother George is in his first year at York and he’s off 3 as well. And I play off +2. My Mum gave it a go but much prefers watching it! Golf was the only thing that I knew growing up and the dream was always to turn professional.

What level did you get to?

I played competitive golf throughout my junior years during primary and secondary school. During that time, I went from county to national and eventually international, representing England Girls in the Europeans and Home Internationals. Unfortunately I don’t play as much as I would like to now and I haven’t played competitively (properly) for a few years but I still love it. When I get out on the course it’s more of a social setting these days.

Where have you worked before? 

I didn’t go to college in the States and I just got into full-time work. My first job in golf was at Moor Allerton where I worked in the pro shop and did bar work, then a friend saw an advert for Sand Moor and I went there as the Assistant Manger in 2021. In March this year I was offered a job within England Golf to become a Tournament Manager but I soon realised that it wasn’t a career I wanted to pursue. I joined Moortown in the summer where I look after a lot of the golfing admin. If the phone ever rings then I’ll always answer it first. So that might be the reciprocal requests, taking bookings and, at this time of year, dealing with new members and subscriptions. There’s always something different, at the moment we’re running a women’s winter package you can play for four months for £300.

What do you hope to bring to the club?

I would like to think having knowledge of golf on and off the course means I can contribute to new ideas and help to continue improving the club. I’ve been a junior and a girl junior at a golf club and I’ve discovered that it’s not just about the golf, it’s the friendships that you build. I’ve made a lot of friends because of golf and I think it’s such a good sport for that and I’d like to try and promote it though that. My sister Ellie went through a phase where she didn’t want to play when she was still a junior as it was all boys and it switched her off from the sport. Now she’s older and it’s different but, when you’re young, you want to be completely comfortable. The higher up you get, there are loads of girls but to get girls, and women, into golf in the first place you need to focus on the friendship side.

What’s your favourite hole at Moortown?

It always changes but right now it’s the 4th – I played Moortown one evening this summer and the sun was setting. As I walked from the 3rd green to the 4th tee, I looked down the hole and was taken back by how pretty it looked in that light. To be honest it was something that I hadn’t appreciated before and normally my favourite holes are par 5s. The mounds and the bunkering just looked so good. It really helps to play here as you then know how the course is playing for any visitors, what changes are taking place and what the members are talking about. I used to be a member at Hollinwell and I would describe Moortown as similar to there, it’s not the same in some ways but it has some similar characteristics.

How would you describe your golf game?  

I am very much a ‘hit driver everywhere’ kind of golfer. My driver is my comfort go-to club in my bag. Although I don’t play in competitions, I still like to get out when I can to keep the golf going as much as possible and I am lucky to have my partner who plays professionally so we will play regularly. I had the pleasure of playing Moortown recently which turned out to be a round I won’t forget any time soon. The company with the ladies was great and my golf made it that bit more enjoyable shooting a new personal best of 9 under. I had no idea what I had scored until I sat down with a card and pencil after and it was a pleasant surprise to see it add up to 66.