LDesigned in a partnership between two winners of the Open Championship: Sandy Herd (Royal Liverpool 1902) and Ted E Ray (Muirfield 1912), the course was popular with King George VI before he took to the throne following the abdication of his brother, Edward VIII, in 1936. In 1923, when King George was Prince Albert, Duke of York, he married Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, descended from a leading County Durham family. Five years later Prince Albert donated a signed photograph of himself for the Chester-le-Street clubhouse.
