PARKSTONE, which this year celebrates it centenary, is not just one of the best golf courses in Dorset, but among the finest in the country.

Many of the sport’s top names have played here, including Peter Alliss, today known as “the Voice of Golf”, professional at the club between 1957 and 1970.

The club’s founder, Lord Wimborne – who had earlier, in 1898, founded Dorset (now Broadstone) Golf Club – exchanged the Ladies’ Walking Field (later the Arndale Centre site) in Poole for the Parkstone Reservoirs, still such a distinctive feature of the course.

Annual membership was two guineas, soon increased to three, and by the end of 1911 there were over 260 members, with, unusually, a third being women.

Over the ensuing century, women have played a significant role at Parkstone – Jeanne Bisgood, EMS “Arkie” Arkell, Barbara Dixon, Jane Sugden, Phyllis Wade and Maureen Garrett bringing home an array of glittering prizes at national and international levels.

The highest point, though, came in 1938, when the club pro, Reg Whitcombe, returned to Parkstone with the Claret Jug after winning the Open at a wind-lashed Royal St George’s.

Another renowned figure in the club’s illustrious long and history is Australian legend Bill Shankland, one of the 20th century’s finest all-round sportsmen.

He won international honours at rugby union, swimming and boxing, but was best known as a rugby league star, for the Kangaroos and Warrington. It was only after retiring from rugby, in 1937, that he took up golf.

A member of Parkstone for over 30 years, the Shankland Memorial Trophy, donated by his family, is played for annually by seniors.

Parkstone has traditionally drawn its membership almost entirely from the local community, and since the early 1960s has been run by its members.