HISTORY
Massereene Golf Club 1895 - 2010
Massereene Golf Club came into being in 1895 with an official opening on 31st August.
The Club became affiliated to the G. U. I. in 1896. About a year later, an entry in The Irish Golfer's Annual of 1897 gave the following description.
"MASSEREENE GOLF CLUB"
1895
Station - Antrim, from York Road Station. About seven trains daily: 1 hour's run.
Entrance Fee - 10s. 6d.
Subscription - £1 1s.
Visitors - 5s. per month.
Hon. Sec. - L. Jackson Holmes, Antrim.
Greenkeeper - Tom Kelly.
These links are on the shores of Lough Neagh about half a mile from the Railway Station and a quarter of a mile from the town. They cannot with accuracy be called inland links or yet sea shore links, unless we dignify Lough Neagh with the title of an inland sea; but whether or not the course is distinctly hybrid, partaking in part of the inland and in parts of the seashore character. Some of the hazards are regular sand bunkers, while others are swamps. The nine holes tot up to a respectable length of 2,150 yards, for which the par score is 36.
The ground on which the course was laid out has an interesting history. The level of the Lough had been lowered a number of times, prior to which, the Lough shore was believed to be somewhere near the present Lough Road. During the Elizabethan age, apparently, the troops who were attempting to subdue O'Neill in Tyrone marched along this road and embarked on boats to cross the lough. There was a ford in the Six-mile-water at Riverside in Antrim which also formed part of this military road. At this time, the mound at the twelfth hole was built, with a flagpole to act as a beacon for the boats returning to Antrim from Tyrone. This story contradicts another tradition which refers to this mound as the "Rebels Grave" and suggests that the insurgents who died in the Battle of Antrim in 1798 were buried there. The former version is more likely since within living memory there has been a flagpole on top of the mound.
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