This venerable old links course was built in 1894 by tancred cummins, a cheshire merchant, with the help of harold hilton, an partner (and founder of the royal liverpool golf club) who had won the open championship two years before. Mr cummins would go on to represent the north wales club for a period of 38 years, until 1933, as captain and secretary.

John ball, a royal liverpool founder and 1890 open champion, presented the club with a putter shortly after it was established, and this trophy is still contested for every year. The hoylake association continues with the words "far and confident" on the north wales badge, which are taken from the royal liverpool golf club slogan.

North wales is set out on llandudno's lovely west bank, just across the estuary from the beautiful conwy golf course, which offers an fascinating array of holes that run out along the rail line and back along the coast, with narrow and difficult greens throughout.

On the outer section, there is just one par five and three short holes, so the back nine's score is just 34. At the 16th and 17th holes, two par threes are played back-to-back, and mr cummins, the club's builder, who bought the land for the course from the church commissioners, obviously tried to avoid any obscure confusion by calling them "o.l." and "l.o" – oh hell and hello!