The Historic Golf Course That John And Paul Traversed And Played Is Also In Crisis

A fun journey away from The Open this morning with Golf World editor Jaime Diaz took us to Allerton Golf Club, the inland 18-hole course that separated Paul McCartney and John Lennon's boyhood homes.

I wrote about this historic site, with comments from McCartney on the course and a fun story about one of the times he was strolling through Allerton Park, signing, strumming his guitar and thinking no one was around. And beyond the Beatles history, it's just the kind of quaint, lay-of-the-land golf course and green space every city can use for recreation or for the next musical genius to walk through playing his guitar.

So what a downer to see from Greg Walton in the Telegraph that Liverpool is facing massive cuts and the status of Allerton is very much up in the air.

But 17 miles from the gates of the Open is Allerton Golf Club. Royal Liverpool charges green fees of up to £175 a round. Allerton charges £11. But the public course has lurched from crisis to crisis of late as the council has tried to offload it. A deal with one golfing venture collapsed after it emerged the firm wanted to mothball the course for three months of the year for ‘commercial reasons’. The course remains in public hands while officials return to the drawing board. But Allerton’s future is perilous as Liverpool council struggles to make £156 million of cuts to its budget.

A trip down Penny Lane was required too. I can safely say it looks like thousands of streets over here. But it's still Penny Lane.

Note the "vandalism" in the upper right corner of the street sign: