Stourbridge Golf Club is to partially reopen one week after devastating fires swept across the West Midlands, though fully restoring the course could cost more than £1m.
Chairman Simon Markey confirmed six holes should be available to members from Saturday, with the clubhouse having already reopened. Around 120 members attended what he described as a “super night”, with “a general sense of optimism” in the room.
The remaining holes were left “devastated” by the fire, along with hundreds of trees, 600m of hedgerow and a storage building.
The blaze broke out on Racecourse Lane, which borders the golf course, destroying 19 homes and damaging 18 others. More than 100 firefighters tackled flames that spread across more than 500 acres.
Markey, who lives close to the club, was among those evacuated. His home escaped damage, but he described watching the fire reach within 50ft of his gates as “one of the scariest things that I’ve ever witnessed”.
One week on, he has been assessing the damage alongside insurers he says have been “incredibly supportive”.
“We’ve now got a sense of what we need to do to try to rebuild the golf club and we’ve got a renewed sense of optimism,” he said, crediting support from the emergency services, neighbours, members, the council and other golf clubs.
The scale of the arboricultural loss is only now becoming clear. After speaking to tree surgeons, Markey said: “It’s shocking to understand that we’re probably going to lose somewhere between 800 and 1,000 trees.”
He acknowledged that the pressure of the recovery had left him “very little time actually and, in some respects, that’s a good thing”, while expressing sympathy for those who lost homes and the families still displaced.
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