The PGA Silver Salver: A Proud Chapter in Heaton Park History
The official professional course record is held by the late Jim Farmer, who sadly passed away on March 1st 2025. He scored 65 and achieved this in 1983, whilst playing at Heaton Park in the Glenmuir PGA Club Professionals Championship, which he won. The players with the ten best scores from this competition, went on to represent Great Britain in a club professionals version of The Ryder Cup, later that year. The competition was originally scheduled to be held at Haigh Hall GC but their course was flooded, with no chance of recovery in time for the competition, so Heaton Park played host at the last minute, and the council managed to recruit several greenkeepers in the area to prepare the course. This had been arranged with Manchester City Council by the Chairman of the PGA at the time, who had recommended Heaton Park, which he knew well, as he was a former member of Bury Golf Club.
In recognition of the help given to the PGA by Heaton Park Golf Club, they presented the club with a silver salver and a photo of the 10 players who represented GB in the USA. The club decided to use the salver for a new honours board competitIon, which is still played for. The salver and the photo are in the case which is located above the counter and contains a number of winners names, but when we ran out of room for the medals, we erected an honours board.
Details of Jim Farmer are provided in the link below. He was very well connected and much respected. He was an absolute gentleman.