Formby Ladies Golf Club

About

Formby Ladies Golf Club is set amongst a magnificent tract of sand hills and pine forest. Founded in 1896, Formby Ladies' is the only truly independent Ladies Golf Club in Britain.

Formby Ladies Golf Club is able to offer weekday and weekend tee times on both Saturday and Sunday and is delighted to welcome both male and female visitors. Many visitors return year after year to play the course with friends, in societies or in their extremely popular Open Competitions.

Over the years the club has hosted many prestigious competitions at County, National and International level including the British Girls Home Internationals, the British Men's Seniors Championship and the British Women's Seniors Championship.

With challenging fairways, heathery rough and greens well protected by pot bunkers, Formby Ladies provides visitors with a unique experience. Open Champion Greg Norman said of Formby Ladies 'Over a hundred years old and still your course can stand the test of time. What a beautiful course. It clearly shows that courses do not have to be 7000 yards plus to be formidable'.

Women have played over the links at Formby since the earliest days, initially as the Ladies section of the Formby Golf Club (FGC). As early as 1886 the women were invited to form their own committee to organise ladies competitions and handicaps and over the next ten years the Ladies Section thrived. However, when Formby Golf Club decided to make alterations to their course in 1896 the women asked if they could have a course of their own and on New Year's Day 1896 the Formby Ladies Golf Club (FLGC) was born. The women then had a nine-hole course and a small clubhouse of their own but remained dependent on FGC for the management of their course. Club Minutes from early 1907 record a flurry of correspondence between FGC and FLGC regarding the cost of extending the ladies course; a new 18-hole links was officially opened on July 1st 1908 and during the same year the Ladies Clubhouse was extended to accommodate the growing membership, which now stood at one hundred and nineteen ladies. Finally in the mid-1920s FLGC employed their own green staff and took over the maintenance and development of the course, however strong links between FGC and FLGC still prevail.

The Course is part of the Ainsdale Sand Dunes National Nature Reserve managed by Natural England. The dunes are home to over 450 plant species including 33 that are locally or regionally rare. The reserve is one of the most important wildlife sites in England and a place where visitors can get close to nature.