{"id":461981,"date":"2026-03-07T04:56:12","date_gmt":"2026-03-07T04:56:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/461981\/"},"modified":"2026-03-07T04:56:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-07T04:56:12","slug":"sinkhole-opens-at-historic-golf-course-revealing-a-stunning-find","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/461981\/","title":{"rendered":"Sinkhole opens at historic golf course, revealing a stunning find"},"content":{"rendered":"

Golf courses are burial grounds for many things: lost balls<\/a>, drainage<\/a> pipes, unrealistic expectations.<\/p>\n

At a club in England this week, the ground opened up to reveal something else: a long-sealed wine cellar.<\/p>\n

The discovery came at Davyhulme Park Golf Club, outside Manchester, where a sinkhole formed on the 13th hole and exposed a brick-lined chamber beneath. Inside were wine bottles of assorted shapes and sizes, all of them empty but brimming with history.<\/p>\n

In a report first published by the BBC<\/a>, deputy head greenskeeper Steve Hopkins said he encountered the sinkhole during his morning rounds. Assuming a collapsed drainpipe, he fetched a digger to investigate. Instead of infrastructure trouble, he unearthed a relic.<\/p>\n

The cellar is believed to have served Davyhulme Hall, a manor dating to the 12th-century reign of Henry II. The hall was demolished in 1888.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was basically the first person to go in there for over a hundred years,\u201d Hopkins told the BBC.<\/p>\n

Unlike the storied wine cellar at Augusta National Golf Club<\/a>, this one holds nothing worth uncorking. But it does offer a taste of the club\u2019s past.<\/p>\n

The site of the sinkhole sits in a portion of the property known as \u201cThe Cellars,\u201d which once served as a workers\u2019 entrance. According to the club\u2019s published history, Davyhulme Hall passed through generations before being inherited in 1844 by Robert Henry Norreys, known locally as Squire Bob.<\/p>\n

The club, which proclaims itself the fourth-oldest in golf club in England, began as nine holes. By 1931, after acquiring additional land, it expanded to 18, with the design work handled by the club\u2019s professional, Ernest Smith, a professional of some note. Smith would later earn a place in the Guinness World Records for playing golf in five countries within 24 hours, flying by light aircraft from Scotland and looping through the U.K. and Ireland in a single day.<\/p>\n

In gratitude for his architectural work, the club granted Smith honorary membership, a rare gesture in an era when professionals were rarely welcomed into clubhouses as peers. Two years later, according to the club\u2019s website, he eloped to South America with the daughter of a member who had been, ahem, taking \u201clessons\u201d from him. The club\u2019s history puts that word in quotes before noting, with admirable understatement: \u201cThis caused quite a stir.\u201d<\/p>\n

So has the cellar.<\/p>\n

Per Hopkins\u2019 account to the BBC, members have already begun debating what should become of it. Some have suggested preserving it as a feature of the course. For now, though, it doesn\u2019t appear to be interfering with play.<\/p>\n

The post Sinkhole opens at historic golf course, revealing a stunning find<\/a> appeared first on Golf<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Golf courses are burial grounds for many things: lost balls, drainage pipes, unrealistic expectations. At a club in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":461982,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[165864,165867,165861,309,165865,5904,41457,165866,101,165862,56,54,55,165863,63246],"class_list":["post-461981","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-augusta-national-golf-club","tag-davyhulme-hall","tag-davyhulme-park-golf-club","tag-england","tag-ernest-smith","tag-golf","tag-golf-courses","tag-robert-henry-norreys","tag-sports","tag-steve-hopkins","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-wine-bottles","tag-wine-cellar"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461981","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=461981"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461981\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/461982"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=461981"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=461981"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=461981"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}