Yorkshire golf – video: Fulford in great shape as it awaits county’s top players

The White Rose’s elite golfers will compete for the title over four rounds of stroke play – one each on Tuesday and Wednesday and, after a cut to the top 40 and ties, two rounds on Thursday – a break from its traditional match play format.

Yorkshire Union of Golf Clubs’ secretary Keith Dowswell said: “This is the first time of playing it purely as stroke play apart from once in the far distant past.

“The change for this year is for a variety of reasons: the format, for a majority, seems to be more popular, it will qualify for World Amateur Ranking points, and it will involve 40 plus competitors playing 36 holes on the final day rather than just two playing 36 holes of match play.

“This makes much better use of an excellent golf course, I think.

“We’ll see how it goes and take our time to review the event afterwards.”

Fulford GC’s general manager Gary Pearce said: “I think some die-hards will be upset with losing the match play aspect, but I think what we will find out with stroke play is who is the best player in the county.”

The club is constantly working to improve the course despite its excellent pedigree of having been a European Tour event venue as well as, more recently, the stage for the 2013 European Ladies Team Championships.

“Some of the bunkers had got a little bit boring, a bit standardised,” said Pearce. “We studied pictures of a full flyover that was made of the UK in 1942 and we’ve used that information to see what the bunkers were originally intended to look like.

“We have been reverting them back to the original design aspect and so now you see some really interesting shapes in the bunkers.”

The field for the first two days will involve 150 players, all starting at the first tee.

“It will be a long day, but Yorkshire (Union of Golf Clubs) are very good at organising these events,” said Pearce. “Keith Dowswell, who is the secretary, Dennis Trickett, the championship organiser, and their team run the tournament very well.

“One hundred and fifty is a normal entry for the Yorkshire Amateur. We will have volunteers from the club, but if I’m honest Yorkshire are that well supported by their army of volunteers that they usually turn up and run the tournament very well without any interference from the club.

“So from a club’s perspective all you have to do is set the course up and make sure all the arrangements are communicated to the rest of the staff around the building so that everyone knows what they are doing.

“The setting up of the course is an on-going process targeted not just specifically for the Yorkshire county championships, but for our presence in championship golf.

“We have had a programme for the last few years of updating and regenerating the golf course. We realised that some bunkers are out of play for the better golfers and were actually penalising some of the higher handicap, which is not fair, so we took some advice from course architect Martin Ebert, who is the R &A adviser for golf course architecture, and he has been working with us for about three years.

“He has produced a master plan which shows us how we can improve the course. It doesn’t mean lengthening the course, it actually means reverting the course quite a bit to how it was originally intended when it was originally designed in 1932.”

Another nod to the past implemented after viewing the 1942 aerial photographs of Fulford is the inclusion of run-off areas at some of the greens.

“Another key aspect we found from the overhead flyovers was that Fulford was a typical MacKenzie design [its architect Charles MacKenzie was brother of Augusta architect Alister] in that it had the run-off areas you see at Augusta,” said Pearce.

“By reinstating some of the run-off areas at the sides of the greens it makes the approach shot a little bit more interesting. Instead of having to hit a sand iron from anywhere around the greens if you miss them it gives you an opportunity to play a range of shots - a bump and run or a long putt, perhaps - so it gives a bit more diversity to the options.

“It also makes it interesting if you are just on the edge of the greens because they are a bit quick and it can run off the green quite easily.”

There are environmental changes which have yet to be implemented, including the removal of some of the silver birch trees which were planted and have self-populated over the years.

“We also plan to reinstate some of the heathers on the golf course,” added Pearce. “That is a long-term plan which will take a number of years to do, but it is all with the intention of hosting events like the Yorkshire Amateur.

“We have just recently been granted the Carris Trophy (England Golf’s Under-18 Open Stroke Play championship) in 2018 and we are very proud to have been asked to host that.

“I think that is a follow on from how successful the European Ladies Team Championships were in 2013 when England Golf came and ran that event here and it was very successful.

“The Yorkshire people came out and supported the event and it was the biggest supported amateur event that they had run.

“So they are hoping that they are going to get another great spectator involvement in 2018 when the best of the English boys turn up to play.”

Spectators are welcome throughout the three days of the Yorkshire Amateur championship this Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Entrance is free and parking is available. The club’s address is Heslington Lane, York YO10 5DY.