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The original course was designed in 1884 by John Thompson from Royal Wimbledon and Willie Fernie from Felixstowe. Fernie had won the Open Championship at Musselburgh the year before, a victory which no doubt boosted his designer’s fee.
The first hole in 1890 started off with a drive across the road which is now the main route from the A12 to Aldeburgh. Six holes later, the golfers drove back across the road, eventually completing the course on the eighteenth green which was to become the current practice putting green. In today's terms, the flag would have been perilously close to the road and its traffic.
In 1907, land previously leased by the club underwent a change of ownership and the golf course had to be modified. J.H. Taylor and Willie Park Junior were engaged for the work. Between them they brought the experience of seven Open titles to bear. J.H. Taylor’s bunkers are visible today, recognisable by their sweeping banks which curve both vertically and horizontally.
The new course was officially opened in 1908 and, broadly speaking, the design has not changed since, despite some ‘fine tuning’ by legendary designer Harold Colt and his partner, C. H. Allison, who was later elected an honorary member of the Club.
The land which had comprised the first six holes of the course eventually became the nine-hole River Course, opened in 1973.
In the last two decades of the 20th Century, drought took its toll on both golf courses. An irrigation system was installed on the eighteen-hole course, since when it has hardly stopped raining. In any case, in order to preserve the fine grasses, the watering system would have been used sparingly, but the insurance against further dry spells has meant that the huge improvements in care that have produced a wonderful golfing experience will be maintained whatever the weather.
The lifespan of the original thatched Clubhouse came to an abrupt end in 1910 when it was reduced to smouldering wreckage by fire. Eighty-one years later, history threatened to repeat itself when a workman left a blow-torch alight in the roof before departing for lunch. It happened on a ladies’ competition day. A passer-by interrupted the après-golf parties in the lounge with the news that flames were leaping through the roof! This time, however, the damage was not so great and the building was restored.
In 2006, a course review culminated in a decision to claw back the thirty-odd yards lost to modern equipment by building eight new championship tees and repositioning several bunkers. John Nicholson, Ken Brown and golf course architect, Ken Moodie, produced the plans. Several of the greens have been 'sculpted' with swales added and greenside bunkers enlarged. The removal of gorse is controversial in some instances but, by the time the grass has grown and the sweep of heath land is restored to its former glory, no-one will be complaining that the golf course has been made easier.
The English Close Ladies Championship has been played at Aldeburgh five times since its inception. Aldeburgh has also hosted the Midland Ladies Championship and the Midlands Sub-Divisional Finals, which, until recently, was a staging post of the English County Championship. It was also the venue for The Champion of Champions event for men when the County Champions of England took on each other to see who came out on top. There was some sparkling golf and there were also some who found the going tough. By 2009, the 125th anniversary of the Golf Club, the alterations sanctioned by the review will have bedded down and the Club will wait with baited breath to see how elite golfers can map their way around a course on which thought is required for every shot and where there are greens that run fast and true even in the winter.
For the foreseeable future, Aldeburgh Golf Club will remain as it is today, gently rolling along in a traditional manner, making history as it goes, preserving its heritage and enjoying the process.
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