THE Definitive Guide to Huddersfield is excellent, but with just one glaring omission. There is no mention of Kirklees’s very own Bradley Park Golf Club.
It is one of the finest municipal courses in the British Isles and its professional happens to be the present Captain of the Professional Golfers’ Association. What an honour for Parnell Reilly, Bradley Park and Kirklees.
My involvement with the club goes back to 1977, when the course opened. Then in 1978 I formed the club which has gone from strength to strength. I was captain during the first handicap, then reducing it to 4.6.
Unfortunately, due to ill-health, I spent 11 weeks in St James’s Hospital in Leeds, then had a triple bypass at the age of 77 in 1999.
My life has been saved but, sadly, my golf has nearly passed away.
Bradley Park was a great help to me in those early days and also for a few hundred other learner golfers. It enabled me to enter many senior golfing tournaments and to play on championship courses throughout the British Isles; Carnoustie, Royal Birkdale, Royal St George’s, Walton Heath, to name just a few.
A short while ago I had a walk on the course and found it to be in top-class condition and the clubhouse facilities and service were excellent.
To publish a booklet free of charge and not to include a couple of pages praising everything at Bradley Park is beyond belief.
It is among the top municipal set-ups in the country and to have their professional as the PGA Captain says a lot for the set-up at Bradley Park, where all the facilities are available to the public.
During my travels playing in the Senior Open I met and partnered many ex-international golfers from all over the world. This enabled me to spread the word about my course at Bradley Park. The experience gained by playing in these major competition was worth every penny it cost me as Captain in those early years.
My best wishes to our Captain of the PGA and all the staff at Bradley Park.
Harry Broadbent
Rastrick
