Ganton Golf Club

Ganton Golf Club, ranked in the top 30 of Europe’s Championship courses, has hosted many national and international tournaments and is a perfect place to play golf. Nestling in the Vale of Pickering, east of York and a few miles from the coastal resort of Scarborough, a day at Ganton is a day to remember. Golf was first played at Ganton in the summer of 1891 on a course laid out by Tom Chisholm of St Andrews who had assistance from Robert Bird, the Club’s first professional and head greenkeeper. The site chosen then formed part of Sir Charles Legard’s Ganton Estate and was very rough ground, covered with whins and many varieties of grasses and wild flowers. Thousands of years previously this area had been submerged as part of an inlet from the North Sea, and the natural sandy subsoil was an ideal place to develop a golf course.

Distance from Scarborough was eleven miles by road, but development was more influenced by the North Eastern Railway Line with Ganton Halt being ¼ mile from the Clubhouse. The proximity of a railway was often a factor in the development of golf courses in the 19th Century, particularly so in Ganton’s case as the membership extended to those living in the West Riding of Yorkshire. Ganton was soon established as a course where history was to be made. In 1896 Harry Vardon came as professional and it was during his stay (to 1903) that he won the first three of his six Open Championships, and it was to Ganton that he brought back the U.S. Championship Trophy in 1900. Ganton has hosted a succession of major amateur and professional tournaments for men and women. In 1964 the Amateur Championship was played with Michael Lunt just failing to defend from the previous year, losing to Gordon Clark in the final at the 39th.