The billiard room of New Heys, the Sandfield Park home of Mr Charles Petrie, was the venue on 10 July 1895 for the first meeting of the founding fathers of West Derby Golf Club. The eleven men who attended decided to form a Provisional Committee with Mr T L Davies as Honorary Secretary. The land selected for their 9 hole course belonged to Col. Hollinshead Blundell of Deysbrook Hall and a lease was agreed for 50 acres between Yew Tree Lane and the public footpath on the Deysbrook Hall Estate. Mr H J Chisholm, a founding member, is credited with being the principal architect of the original 9 holes, which were opened for play a year later on 29 July 1896. Mr Petrie, later knighted and a Lord Mayor of Liverpool, was elected Captain for the first two years followed by Mr Chisholm for the next two years.

By 1897 the membership comprised 100 men and 70 ladies and in the following year the Rt. Hon. Frederick Arthur Stanley, 16th Earl of Derby, accepted the invitation to be the club’s first President. The Committee allocated £100 for the building of a wooden pavilion and a shed for bicycles. Albert Haskins volunteered his services as groundsman, professional and coach, promising to do the tasks for no pay as he believed that he could make a living from sales, repairs and golf lessons. He was to serve the Club for 40 years until his retirement in 1936 when he was made an honorary member for life. His successor, Harry Rudd, almost matched this with 38 years of service until he retired in 1974.

On four occasions fires caused damage to the clubhouse, the most serious being shortly after the end of the first World War. Having survived a Government decree in 1917 that the course must be ploughed, the clubhouse was totally destroyed by fire in 1919. The insurance proceeds enabled a new clubhouse to be built but this too was lost to a fire in 1929. Twelve months later a new clubhouse was opened and is still serving the members, albeit having been extended and refurbished over the years. By the time the new clubhouse was opened in 1930 the course had been extended to 18 holes. A series of land deals between 1927 and 1931 enabled the club to purchase additional adjacent land and also secure the future by buying the original 50 acres. Messrs Kirkwood, Medrington & Hassell were the architects appointed to design the new course which was officially opened on 11 April 1931.

West Derby had its share of action during the second World War when a number of barrage balloons and a Royal Artillery gun battery were sited on the course. On the night of 21/22 December 1940 the battery fired 842 rounds against enemy aircraft out of a Brigade total of 11,200 rounds. The post-war period in the fifties was not without its problems when the club was threatened with a compulsory purchase order for a major part of the land. Having survived this threat the club embarked on a visionary tree planting scheme in the sixties with over 4,000 specimens covering 60 species. These have now matured to provide a course that is well defined and a pleasurable test of golf in a parkland setting.

As a founder member of the Society West Derby were well represented at the inaugural meeting in 1908. The Club has provided three Society Captains, Gerald Papworth (1952/53), Tom Wolfenden (1989/90), and the current (2014/15) Society Captain Alan Morris. A trophy to commemorate Tom’s service to the Society is played for by the “over 65s” at the Autumn Meeting.