Tucked away in the centre of Cheshire’s Golden Triangle, and just 15 minutes from Manchester Airport, Adlington Golf Centre has developed from agricultural land into a leading golf and leisure venue. The journey began in the early 1990s with two farmers who had been feeling the effects of a difficult agricultural market. In search of growth, they drew inspiration from a supplier who loved golf. Fortuitously, this idea was born, and now the ‘golf seeds’ have blossomed into a 42-bay TrackMan floodlit driving range, two par-3 courses, a short game area, footgolf, and now an 18-hole Australian Adventure Golf Course.
Australian Adventure Golf
The Adlington Golf Centre remains a family business, and despite none of them being keen golfers, thankfully that hardworking farming mentality has meant they aren’t phased by the challenges that working the land brings. The Adventure Golf Course took close to six years to achieve planning consent due to being on Green Belt land, but thankfully their perseverance paid off.
Just weeks into opening, the Australian-themed attraction is drawing in families of all ages from across the region and beyond, many of whom have never played golf before and just want to have fun. It might be the largest of its type in Europe and cost millions of pounds to build, but imagine this setup in the UAE. We have some of the greatest championship courses in the world, which has been strengthened by TopGolf, but imagine how an Adlington Golf Centre setup would help grow the game.
Who would have thought that a Cheshire farming family might have one of the best grassroots showcases to bolster the sport’s appeal?
To find out more about the Golf Centre’s latest attraction and what else is on the horizon, we caught up with their Managing Director, James Moss.
Who’s idea was it to develop an adventure golf course at the range and why the Australian theme?
James Moss: In 1999, we built our second golf course, a longer par-3 called the Graduate, to lead people on to something more challenging than the Academy course. However, only a few years after the Graduate Course opened, there was talk of a local relief road being built that would cut off three holes, rendering the course unplayable. We then needed to look for an alternative use for the remaining land, and an Adventure Golf Course seemed the obvious option. The Australian theme came about as we wanted to do something unique and different from the usual Dinosaur or Pirate themes often associated with Adventure Golf. The question then was, what theme? As a family, we have all been to Australia and have fond memories of visiting the country. Some of the family even lived over there for a while! We found this to be a common theme across many families in the UK; lots of people in the UK have friends or family in Australia, so we thought it would be a good theme that many could relate to.
From initial concept to completion, how long did it take to construct and what specialist firm did you employ?
As mentioned earlier, the hardest challenge was planning! Once that hurdle was cleared, the timeframe from concept drawings to opening was about 14 months. We used a specialist contractor (Dominic Developments) that delivered the entire project from concept drawings to structural designs, earthworks, and construction—a full turnkey operation. Our Adventure Golf Course is one of the largest in Europe, so turning it around in 14 months, especially with the wet weather we’ve had, is a huge credit to the team.
The 18 holes are fun, but did the whole family have input and what personal/individual touches were incorporated into the designs?
All the family were involved throughout the whole project. We all had ideas as to how we thought each hole could play, and the contractors were also instrumental at this stage, adding their experience to the mix. We’ve added personal touches along the way, such as having all the family and staff’s handprints stencilled onto the walls of Uluru. The truck used on Hole 4 was also imported from Australia, so we’ve tried to make it as authentic as possible! Great thanks must also go out to a brilliant and visionary architect, Malcolm Tempest, who greatly encouraged us to enlarge the overall footprint of the development site and who influenced the concept of playing through the features rather than alongside them.
Which hole was the greatest challenge to build and why?
King George Falls definitely presented the biggest challenge! It’s a 7.5m tall waterfall that you play through and is a 26-yard putt. Not only was it the biggest feature hole to create, but it was also at the back of the site, which meant it was the first hole to be built in the furthest location. The foundations alone contain 300m² of concrete and 25 tonnes of reinforcement steel—that was before the structure even got above ground level!
There are numerous fun ways to play each hole, with clever shortcuts. Were these designed or devised during the construction phase?
That was a key part of our remit—we wanted there to be multiple ways to play the holes and an element of surprise every now and then. Although we had ideas for the shortcuts, most of them were devised during the construction phase.
It’s a great attraction for non-golfers of all ages, but how will you try to encourage people to move over to the range and onto the academy course?
We’re hoping that when people drive to play the Adventure Golf, they’ll see what else we have on offer and consider trying golf. We currently have a loyalty discount scheme for the Golf Centre, and our aim is to offer this across the whole site, allowing golfers and Adventure Golfers access to cheaper rates and offers.
What is next for Adlington Golf Centre?
We’ve got a long list of future projects! The next focus for us is Food and Beverage, along with Padel courts. We’ve wanted to get into F&B for a long time but want to ensure we can do it well. Now that the Adventure Golf is up and running, we’ll assign some resources to deliver this in the near future. Padel courts should be an easy enough addition and will make our site appealing to an even broader range of clientele. Then we plan to update the driving range building, as it’s now over 30 years old. All of this is alongside the usual day-to-day goings-on! n
