Golf


Dark days and bright times have both run through the career of Graham Wallace, but 2017 marks a dual celebration for this lifelong greenkeeping professional. Greg Rhodes visits Bransford Golf Club, just a few miles west of Worcester and in the shadow of the beautiful Malvern Hills


I


n the rush to build golf courses in the 1980s, few spotted that golf participation was not rising to the heights predicted when the floodgates opened. Fierce competition and the


severe economic downturn in the late noughties proved too much for a clutch of courses that had failed to adapt to shifting market forces. That might have proved the case for


Bransford Golf Club and Bank House, the country house hotel linked with it, but the good times are back - the course is re- energised, members are happy, visitor numbers are rising and the hotel has newly


added a luxurious spa to build year-round business. The transformation is due largely to the major investment that entrepreneur Peter Wood ploughed into the course and clubhouse after buying the estate lock, stock and barrel five years ago. “It’s a great story of a successful


businessman reinvesting in his local area,” remarks Course Manager Graham Wallace, who, this year, celebrates a decade at Bransford, while the course chalks up twenty-five years. “I’ve seen ups and downs in that time,” he continues, “but the last four years here have


PC AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2017 I 29


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