Clayton have marked their centenary season in style by winning four out of four league titles.

The nine-hole club saved arguably their best ever campaign for their 100th year as the scratch, tigers, rabbits and junior teams all won their respective divisions.

While Baildon produced an impressive scratch and rabbits double, winning both the overall titles, no other club in the Bradford Union can lay claim to a clean sweep across the board.

Clayton's tigers were the premier team in the 8-15 League, lifting the Division A crown. The rest of the club's sides earned promotion as the rabbits and juniors won division C titles and the scratch team became Division D champions.

Yet the Thornton View Road Club's success didn't stop there. They also won the Rabbits' Nine-Hole Team Championship on their own course by a country mile. And 16-year-old Clayton member Scott Smith, who won Division A Tigers' Player of the Year, clinched the 8-15 Individual Championship at Cleckheaton.

"It's just superb that we've done so well in our centenary season," said captain Ian Longthorn.

"It's a great achievement for a club with only about 150 full members. We've never had a season like it."

Longthorn attributed the great spirit within the club as a contributing factor towards their success. But perhaps more significantly, he pointed out that alterations to the course in recent years has made members better players.

A decision to extend the course was made following the purchase of extra land in 1999. That saw the yardage increase considerably to over 6,200, making it one of the longest nine-hole courses in Yorkshire.

Central to the extension was the introduction of the first par-five on the course. The 536-yard dog-leg ninth, usually played into a prevailing wind, is particularly testing, with trees, a water hazard and a two-tier green to contend with.

The first hole was also increased from being a simple 270-yard, par-four hole to an intimidating 440 yards with trees encroaching on to the fairway.

Longthorn, who joined 35 past captains and 20 past presidents at a reunion dinner to mark the club's centenary earlier this year, added: "Players have had to learn to play a course with trees on. Before some of the alterations, you could give it a big heave and go anywhere you wanted as there was nothing in the way and there was no rough.

"Now members have changed the way they play golf and learned to play on a tighter course. The extra length also means that when we play away we are not intimidated by longer courses."

Clayton - whose eighth hole, known as the "Spion Kop", is listed among the country's most extraordinary holes - may not be one of the more illustrious clubs in the Bradford Union.

But they have produced one of the city's best golfers in Martin Foster, who recently played in the British Senior Open at Turnberry.

The former England international finished second on four occasions on the European Tour during the late seventies and early eighties and was seventh in the Order of Merit in 1976.

His emergence coincided with the club's golden era which saw them become the first nine-hole club to win the Bradford Union Scratch League in 1969.