Progress of the Club 1908-1945
When the Club moved to Tettenhall in 1908 it had 162 gentlemen and 87 lady members. The annual subscription was 5 guineas for gentlemen and £2 12s 6d for ladies and by 1910 the fees had risen to 7 guineas and £3 13s 6d respectively.
The new golf course was settling in well, the problem was its maintenance which posed quite a labour problem and by 1910 it had become too much of a problem for Thomas Weston, the Professional and Greenkeeper, who was asked to resign following many complaints. The jobs thereafter were separated and the Professional was asked to give advice on the preparation of the course.
George Tuck, who had previously been appointed as the Club Professional in the last few months of the Club’s occupancy of Penn Common, and had remained there, was reappointed in 1911 as the Professional of The South Staffordshire Golf Club.
Tuck had established a reputation as a player and became Midland Professional Champion in 1913. He was also a keen participant in ‘wager matches’ which was a method by which professionals could make extra money and he was often invited to play in many exhibition matches.
One such match took place at Danescourt on 13th May 1913 when George Duncan and Harry Vardon played with George Tuck and Len Holland. Duncan was a rising star and went on to win the Open in 1920. Vardon of course had already won the Open Championship on five occasions and later on in 1913 would be involved in the ‘greatest game ever played’ the triple play-off for the US Open with Ted Ray and the winner, Francis Ouimet.
Large crowds witnessed a medal round in the morning in which Vardon scored 68 – a new professional record for the course. In the afternoon a four ball alliance was played which Vardon and Tuck won 6 and 5. Vardon’s score was computed at 64 and he was reported to have played perfect golf. Vardon expressed his delight with the course and said how agreeably surprised he was to find it playing so well.
Large crowds gathered again on 14th May 1914 to witness Ted Ray and Sandy Herd grace the course in another exhibition match with Holland and Tuck. Herd was the 1902 Open Champion and Ray was the reigning Open Champion and would go on to win the US Open in 1920. This was to be the last of the ‘wager matches’ until after the First World War.
In 1914 the Club exercised the option, taken out in 1907, to purchase the golf course at a cost of £6,000. In order to finance this 889 Debentures were issued to members at £5 each. There was also a move by the Committee to alter some of the holes and the advice of H.S. Colt, a notable amateur golfer and course 
designer at the time was sought.
designer at the time was sought.For the fee of 18 guineas, Colt made several suggestions including altering the first four holes and raising several greens and building new bunkers. The Committee were in favour of making the first hole longer, altering the second to a short hole across Coppice Lane and building new holes at the Eighth and Eleventh. Some of these changes were completed before the outbreak of World War I and the Eleventh hole is today much as Harry Colt left it but the re-designed Eighth no longer exists.
When the 1914-18 War broke out, The South Staffordshire Golf Club was well established on its new course and in its new clubhouse and the future seemed rosy but war would have its effects on the Club. Several members answered the call to military service; the Club’s regular ground staff was reduced from twelve to four men, three of whom were over 55 years of age. Fewer people spent money at the Club and cash flow problems emerged. Wages rose to match the shortage of labour. The Professional George Tuck went to work in a munitions factory before enlisting in the army in 1916.
Several members were either killed or wounded in action, most notably was the Club Captain Dr Frank Armitage, D.S.O., of the Royal Army Medical Corp., a son of a founder of the Club who held the amateur course record of 66 shots (Two shots less than Vardon’s professional record) Other members made the supreme sacrifice and many younger members returned too badly injured to ever play again. At the end of the war the Club managed to secure the demobilisation of the professional, George Tuck, who returned to his duties. In 1919 a suitable war memorial tablet (which can still be seen today) was erected in the clubhouse.
The ladies’ section of the Club continued to flourish both on and off the course. Prior to the war South Staffs provided most of the Staffordshire Ladies’ Team, Mrs Perry, Mrs Mactier, Mrs Shelton and Mrs E. Bayliss. Elizabeth Bayliss won the Midland Ladies’ Championship three times, the Staffordshire Championship five times and, representing Wales, won all of her matches in the Home Internationals at Turnberry in 1921. In the nineteen twenties and thirties the playing record of the South Staffordshire Ladies was second to none.
The gentlemen also excelled with many Midlands and Staffordshire titles won between them. Jack Beddard was a regular selection for the England team and was runner up in the Amateur Championship of 1927. Also in the 1920s G J Moore represented Ireland and A R McCallum played for Scotland and was part of the Walker Cup team in Chicago in 1928. Roger Bayliss first represented England in 1929 and in that year all four of the Club’s leading golfers played in the Home Internationals. They were joined by Michael Pritchard in the 1930s.
After the end of World War I there was much work to be done to restore the course to its former condition. When war broke out the Club had been about to alter the layout of the course and change the character of some of the holes. This had largely been shelved on the outbreak of hostilities. Colt’s plans were dropped in order to give the Committee a free hand in restoring the course.
In 1923 the old Debentures became redeemable, the existing mortgage was paid off and £8,195 worth of new Debentures issued to 118 members at an interest rate of 5% per annum. Owing to heavy expenditure on the course in 1927 a further 761 Debentures were issued.
By 1923 there were 225 gentlemen, 9 restricted, 130 lady, 79 junior and 25 temporary members of the club and a considerable waiting list.
The economic depression of the 1930’s was not without its casualties at the Club and some resignations were received. In 1932 the Professional George Tuck left the Club after a long period of illness and was replaced by Bob Dornan, the Scottish Professional Champion from a list of 200 applicants.
In 1935 the Club awarded Honorary Life Membership to Mein Wilkie and if anyone could be said to be the founder of the Club it would be him. He served the Club as its Treasurer continuously from 1893 until his death in 1936. A fitting epitaph is the fine weathervane surmounting the clubhouse which captures his distinctive putting stance.
Between 1936 and 1938 work was carried out which enabled the course to assume much of its present form. James Braid was invited to draw up the plans for an improved and lengthened course. The first hole was lengthened and the green placed where it is today, the old third hole played across Coppice Lane became the second and major alterations were made to greens, tees and bunkers elsewhere on the course. In 1938 James Braid was invited back to see how his ideas had been put into effect and was very pleased with the results. The outbreak of World War II caused major problems for the Club and the course. Labour shortages and alternative uses of the course. Once again animals were grazed on the land and potatoes were grown down the right side of the first fairway. For a short while, a search light battery was posted to the golf course and the land was also used to train local detachments of the Home Guard. There was a decline in members and rounds of golf declined remarkably from 3,722 played in 1938 to 1400 rounds played in 1940.
Several members lost their lives and by 1945 the membership was looking forward to resuming golf activities and the number of members had begun to return to pre-war levels with 214 gentlemen, 95 ladies and 39 junior members. The gentlemen paid an entrance fee of 10 guineas a year, exactly double that paid in 1908.
In forty years the Club had strengthened its membership despite two World Wars and a major economic depression, to develop into the one of the strongest golf clubs in the Midlands.