EXCITING times are being seen at Cockermouth Golf Club as its newly refurbished clubhouse has been unveiled and it has seen an influx of new members.

Cockermouth Golf Club held the grand reopening of its clubhouse on Saturday after its refurbishment, the town’s new mayor Alan Smith did the honours on the club’s 125th anniversary.

The club was officially opened in May 1896.

This year’s captain Dave Skilbeck and ladies captain Elaine Wilson were in attendance to see the clubhouse opened for the first time since restrictions came into force again in October.

It heralds a positive period for Cockermouth Golf Club. A spokesperson for the team said: “It’s buoyant, it’s bouncing with a lot of new members between 20 and 40 years old.

“A lot of them came from other sports clubs because they couldn’t open.”

Presentations were made to Alan Taylor and Charles Neale for over 50 years’ service to the club.

Charles and Alan both joined as Junior members and both went on to become Club Champions.

The club spokesperson said: “We’ve refurbished the clubhouse during lockdown, it was dated with wood panelled walls, we’ve modernised it which has gone down really well.

“I wish we’d done it years ago. A lot of the work was done by members because we have a lot of tradespeople.”

Cockermouth Golf Club were in a position to refurbish their clubhouse thanks to support from the players who continued to pay their membership and in some cases anonymously donated large sums towards the fund.

“The loyalty they’ve shown since last March is unbelievable. A lot of golf clubs were frightened people would stop their direct debits, that became our only source of income.”

The support of members helped the club through a difficult time.

“We didn’t know what support was going to come through the Government.”

The golf club’s ground was abuzz with activity during the re-opening.

“It was fantastic, the place was bouncing, it was a great atmosphere on Saturday night.”

And the evening was concluded with the golf week prize giving.

Their evening culminated in a match between Dave Skilbeck, the captain and the vice captain.

The result was a victory for vice captain John Dixon and his team.