Our story

A century of golf, opened by the Open Champion.

Beeston Fields opened in 1923 on parkland that had been the Bowden family estate. Sir Harold Bowden — the man who built Raleigh into the largest bicycle manufacturer in the world — sold the land to the club at favourable terms. His family home became the clubhouse. It still serves that purpose today.

The course was designed by Tom Williamson, long-serving professional at Notts Golf Club at Hollinwell and one of the most prolific Midlands architects of his era. The opening round was played by Arthur Havers in 1923 — the reigning Open Champion, who had won at Troon by a single shot over Walter Hagen earlier that summer. The opening party at Beeston Fields was, in effect, Havers’s first ceremonial round on home soil after the win.

The course has been refined steadily over the century since. The clubhouse has been kept within the bones of the original Victorian house. The Old Drive Trackman simulator has brought modern coaching into the old rooms. The club marked its centenary in 2023.