Stoke Rochford Golf Club are starting their centenary season

A golf club turned back time on Sunday as they officially got their centenary season underway with the Captains Drive-in.

The new skippers at Stoke Rochford Golf Club came dressed for the occasion at the traditional season curtain-raiser.

As well as wearing the golfing garb of the 1920s, players drove from the first tee with hickory clubs - as would have been used to strike the first-ever tee shot, back in 1924.

Members turned out to welcome new club captain, Peter Smith, and lady captain, Pauline Haggerty, and to say thanks to 2023 skippers Gareth Tamblyn-Jones and Hannah Thorold.

“When Hannah asked me to be captain for the centenary year, I thought ‘oh my goodness’,” said Pauline.

“But it’s not my year. I’m a member and it’s for all of our members, to enjoy the fact we’ve been here for 100 years.

“I feel very proud of our club. Just one thing is important - that the club moves on and continues to prosper, as it has with previous captains.”

Pauline will raise money for the county hospice, St Barnabas, in her year of captaincy, while Peter’s chosen charity is Bourne-based mental health charity Don’t Lose Hope.

“I’m very proud to be the captain in our centenary year,” said Peter, who first joined Stoke Rochford as a junior with his father in the mid-1970s.

“I have seen many changes to the course and its surroundings, from the cattle that roamed the course with barbed wire around the greens, to the highly-maintained, beautifully scenic course that we play today - this is a great honour for me.”

While Sunday was about looking forward to a packed season of events, including a special centenary week in May, club members also looked back to its origins.

The club was founded by Christopher Turnor, the owner of Stoke Rochford Hall at the time.

He developed an interest in golf during the First World War and set out a few basic tees and greens at the front of the hall up to where the present clubhouse stands.

A proper nine-hole course was set out in 1923, and then hosted its first golfers on February 18, 1924.

By the end of the year, Stoke Rochford Golf Club had been formed, with 32 playing members paying a £1 entrance fee and an annual subscription of two guineas. Turnor was appointed as its first club president.

Stoke’s first 18-hole course was designed in 1935 by Colonel Stafford Vere Hotchkin, owner and course architect of the internationally-renowned Woodhall Spa Golf Course, who took the two holes in front of the hall out of use.

In 1954, Alistair McCorquodale, husband of Major Turnor's daughter Rosemary, took over the estate and became the club’s third president, beginning a McCorquodale family association which remains to this day.

Alistair’s son Neil is the fourth, and current, club president.

However, the running of the club was handed over from the Stoke Rochford estate to a committee of club members in 1963, opening up the chance for further improvements to its course and facilities.

In the early days of golf at Stoke Rochford the players had shared accommodation with the Roadhouse - a restaurant next to the Great North Road - until it was destroyed by fire in 1963.

A First World War wooden hut became the new clubhouse which was improved and expanded over the years, until in 1985 the present brick clubhouse was built.

It, too, along with the course has seen many changes and developments over the years as Stoke Rochford continues to evolve.

“Here's looking to a great future and another 100 years for this wonderful golf club and course,” Peter added.

For details of centenary events, membership and to book a round, visit www.stokerochfordgolfclub.co.uk