"The Boomer Legacy"

by Peter E Firth

The "rags to riches" story of La Moye Golf Club had a colourful beginning. Denied access to the prestigious Royal Jersey Golf Club on the Island´s east coast, a village schoolmaster resolved to make his own course on the west, using empty tinned fruit cans, biscuit boxes and a second-hand mower.

The same schoolmaster, George Boomer, taught two future open champions, Harry Vardon and Ted Ray; one of his sons, Aubrey, was a runner up to Bobby Jones in the Open and twice played in the Ryder Cup. George himself turned pro at the unlikely age of 60.

His rudimentary course layout among the sand dunes attracted a core of like minded souls and his golf club developed after a fashion, but always as a poor relation to the club on the other side of the Island. Until the 1930´s that is, when it had the vision to engage the leading golf architect of the day, James Braid, to re-design the course.

It was officially opened by Harry Vardon and in 1935 the Prince of Wales took time out from an official visit to Jersey to play the course. But Braid´s brilliant handiwork did not survive long. Within a few years the German Army of Occupation had laid waste the fairways and demolished the clubhouse to improve the sight lines for its heavy artillery, an act of desecration perhaps excusable from a nation whose first golfing hero, was as yet unborn.

After a period of make-do-and-mend, La Moye picked itself up in the early 1960´s, undertook some major alterations to the course on the advice of Henry Cotton who saw a potential Troon in the making, and also built a smart new clubhouse.

The membership rolled in. This time they came from the wealthier elements on Jersey Society, the services of a large contingent of civil aviation personnel on the Island. The tide had turned.

When the Jersey Open was conceived, La Moye was its natural home and became host to some of the finest golfers in the world. In the meantime, it began attracting visiting golfers from near and far, among them a liberal sprinkling of celebrities, drawn there by the quality of the course and the warmth of the Club´s hospitality.

Its list of Honorary Members is a distinguished as you´d find anywhere, including as it does the names of astronaut Alan Shepard, not to mention Ian Woosnam and Tony Jacklin and anyone wishing to become member today is in for a very long wait indeed.