Martin to promote eco-project

MARTIN Unsworth will be overseeing an exciting eco-project during his year as captain at Denton Golf Club.

The 62-year-old has been explaining how the golf club will be helping to save the endangered great crested newts.

Denton has linked up with Tameside Council for the initiative which initially will see all the ponds on the golf course being cleaned.

Martin said: “Quite often building work cannot take place at sites because they are inhabited by great crested newts.

“The idea is that they are moved to our ponds so the developments can go ahead.”

Captains Martin Unsworth and Gaynor Wood

Denton has received grant funding to clean the ponds and it will be an on-going link up moving forward.

Martin, in his 17th year as a member at Denton, described being appointed captain as the pinnacle.

It is a far cry to when he began playing pay and play in his mid-twenties when he lived at Abbots Langley just outside his native Watford.

Martin became a member at Patshull Park when he worked and lived in Wolverhampton, and it was there that he experienced his most surreal moment in golf.

He and playing partner Kevin McNish both had holes-in-one in the same round, Martin at the 10th and Kevin later at the 17th.

Work has been completed on this pond

Martin met his wife-to-be Lesley in Madeira in 2004 and, as she was from Manchester, moved here. At the time he was also working in Manchester but still living in Wolverhampton.

He lives a five-minute walk from the course which he explained is perfect when it comes to attending social events.

“I can walk, or should I say stagger, home,” he joked.

Martin plays off a handicap of 15, it has been as low as 12, and his biggest win was victory in the Myers Cup, a mixed event which is a board competition.

He added Denton has survived Covid-19 well and the club’s finances are stable, and it is in a “healthy place”.

Martin added Denton had a large increase in membership during the pandemic when at one stage golf and fishing were the only sporting pursuits permitted.

“It will be interested to see what happens this year and whether we can retain them now other sports have resumed,” he said.

Martin is retired having worked latterly in general maintenance and his other interests include being a lifelong Watford football fan and baseball.

The Boston Red Sox are his favourite team, and he has watched games during visits to America.

The captain, lady captain and president will all have Reuben’s Retreat as their charity for the year.

He and the club will also be helping former captain Trevor Taylor raise funds for Prostate Cancer UK.

Trevor and several other members have been diagnosed with the illness.