Golf courses are burial grounds for many things: stray balls, DRAINAGE tubes, unrealistic expectations.
At a club in England this week, the grounds were opened to reveal something else: a long-closed wine cellar.
The discovery came at Davyhulme Park Golf Club, outside Manchester, where a sinkhole formed on the 13th hole and exposed a brick-lined room beneath. Inside were wine bottles of various shapes and sizes, all empty but filled with stories.
In one First report published by the BBCdeputy greenskeeper Steve Hopkins said he encountered the hole during his morning rounds. Assuming a collapsed drain pipe, he took a digger to investigate. Instead of infrastructure problems, he discovered a relic.
The cellar is believed to have served Davyhulme Hall, a manor dating back to the 12th century reign of Henry II. The hall was demolished in 1888.
“I was basically the first person to go there in over a hundred years,” Hopkins told the BBC.
Unlike the famous wine cellar in Augusta National Golf Clubthis has nothing worth opening. But it does offer a taste of the club’s past.
The pit site is located in a part of the property known as “The Cellars”, which once served as an entrance for workers. According to the club’s published history, Davyhulme Hall passed through generations before being inherited in 1844 by Robert Henry Norreys, known locally as Squire Bob.
The club, which bills itself as the fourth oldest golf club in England, started with nine holes. By 1931, following the purchase of additional land, it was extended to 18, with the design work handled by the club’s professional, Ernest Smith, a renowned professional. Smith would later earn a place in the Guinness World Records for playing golf in five countries within 24 hours, flying in light aircraft from Scotland and across the UK and Ireland in a single day.
In recognition of his architectural work, the club awarded Smith honorary membership, a rare gesture in an era when professionals were rarely welcomed into clubs as peers. Two years later, according to the club’s website, he fled to South America with the daughter of a member who had taken “lessons” from him. The club history puts the word in quotation marks before marking it, with admirable understatement: “It caused quite a stir.”
So is the basement.
According to Hopkins’ account to the BBC, members have already begun debating what should be done with him. Some have suggested keeping it as a feature of the course. At the moment, though, it doesn’t seem to be interfering with gameplay.
