A LITTLE bit of local history will repeat itself on August 8 when the Mayor of Ealing, Councillor Barbara Yerolemou, tees off on the first hole at Brent Valley Golf Club.
It was 71 years ago that a similar ceremony was enacted at the Church Road course in Hanwell to mark the council's acquisition of a club that was founded in 1909.
Now, with the centenary upon us, the club is marking the occasion again.
Even before it became a municipal course, the club prided itself on being non-elitist - providing 'moderate golf at a moderate price', according to the club secretary of the time, George Chambers.
But it has moved on for the better in other ways - women are no longer banned from playing at the weekends and caddies are no longer obligatory on Sundays.
The course has a proud heritage, having been designed by five-times Open winner JH Taylor, who was also the architect of the more famous Royal Birkdale course.
It was founded by property developer Albert Toley, who became the first president and lived in what became the clubhouse - a beautiful three-storey Victorian mansion called Dublin House, which was inexplicably pulled down in 1966 to make way for a modern facility.
In those days, it boasted a grand entrance hall, a snooker room, a men's bar, a lounge and a dining room.
The club passed into council hands in July 1938 for the princely sum of £1.5million and was reported in the West Middlesex Gazette - one of our forerunners - on July 23, three days after the event, pictured above.
During the Second World War, the eighth and ninth fairways were ploughed up for crops to aid the war effort.
Some say that if you look closely, you can still see the furrows.
The only casualty on the course during the war was the first fairway, which was hit by a bomb.
