History

Beedles Lake Golf Club and its surroundings have undergone several transitions to become the beautiful course that we see today. The clubhouse overlooks a magnificent 38 acre lake known locally as Beedles Lake, as in the 1950's it was owned by Thomas Beedle. The land was sold to Jelson Ltd in the 1960's for sand and gravel excavation followed by landfill.

It was at the Jelson Centenary Golf Day in 1987 that talk began of the possibilities of a golf course on the site. David Tucker a local golf course architect was keen to develop a golf course on the site and as Robert Jelley, MD of Jelson Ltd. was his son-in-law, he had the ideal opportunity. David was passionate about the pay and play ethos and wanted to bring a high standard of golf within the reach of everyone. He had already designed a number of golf courses including locally Lingdale, Oadby and Six Hills but it was his experience of designing many northern golf courses on Coal Board landfill sites that would be invaluable here. There then followed a working alliance that proved to be revolutionary in golf course design and build, that of golf course architect David Tucker with Jelson Ltd. the building company. The plans were drawn up and construction began. Now the alliance between a building company with excellent knowledge of drainage and construction and an architect with vision and design flair came into it's own.

Ian Needham was a JCB operator at the time he recalls the conversation:-

Robert: Ian, we've had plans drawn up and we are going to build a golf course on this site.

Ian: But i've never even been on a golf course before, never mind know anything about the game.

Robert: We're sure we can do it.

Ian: Well, perhaps the first thing I should do is go to college and learn a little bit about golf and golf course maintenance.

Ian recalls - "The sight was transformed into the beautifully landscaped course you see today, hundreds of trees were planted and some innovative construction ideas were used. Ash was used as the root-zone for the greens. This was against all advice on green construction at the time, but Jelsons organised experiments and showed it to be good growing matter with excellent drainage".

"A lot of people threw there hands up in horror and told us it wouldn't work. It wouldn't hold the nutrients and it would be very stale. It was pure black ash".

But the use of this material is the reason Beedles Lake never has to use temporary greens not even in the depths of winter.

"We started by building the 9th and 18th greens testing two different types of turf to see which was best suited to the ash. I dug out all the drainage - between 250 and 500 metres of it - and then put eight to ten inches of clean two inch ash on top of the draining layer, then two to three inches of 5/8ths down to fines to act as the intermediate layer then 12 to 18 inches on top of that".

He also shaped the greenside bunkering at the same time - "It was a real work of art to shape them, I knew where the fairways were coming in from but should imagine when I started there was a large element of luck as to how it turned out," said Ian, with disarming honesty.

The turf that best suited the greens was supplied by Greenkeeper Turf, Shetford, Notts.

"It had been grown on polythene and so had no soil on it when it came to us and we found it grew a lot quicker and was easier to maintain, so having built the 9th and 18th in October and November of 1991, we went full steam ahead in '92," said Ian.

He found that as he progressed that his skills developed to the extent that he even tackled a McKenzie two tier green. This was also aided by regular visits to other golf clubs to see established golf courses and hoover up information visually and from the Course Managers. The course opened on the 1st July 1993 and now hosts around 35,000 rounds per year with a membership of around 400. Ian Needham went on to become Head greenkeeper, Course manager and Club Captain in 2000.

The excellent clubhouse has since been extended twice to accomodate demand, the new function room can seat 150 to dinner and overlooks the beautiful lake which gives the club its name.