Members of Bury Golf Club are celebrating the opening of a new 18th hole following major course alterations worth thousands of pounds.
 
It will mean that the club can continue to play a full round of golf when work starts this week on a major new water pipeline.
 
United Utilities is laying the pipeline, known as the West East Link, between Liverpool and Woodgate Hill service reservoir at Bury.  Part of the 55km route passes through a section of the golf course.
 
The company has employed a golf architect to convert a substantial area of rough to a high quality temporary green so that the existing 18th hole can be taken out of play while the pipeline is laid. The re-configuration work has included creating three new tees as well as the new green. All the landscaping was done last summer, and they are now in excellent condition and ready to be  brought into play.
 
John Bradbury, the chairman of Bury Golf Club's pipeline committee, said: "When United Utilities approached us two years ago to discuss the route of the pipeline we were naturally concerned about the impact on the club. But the company has really gone the extra mile to mitigate any disruption.
 
"We're very pleased with the replacement green - it has some new challenges for old and new members alike, but more importantly it means we will still have a measured and playable course throughout the pipeline work.
 
"I know many of our members are looking forward to seeing the scale of the engineering up close - all golf courses have features of interest, but not many have cranes, 1.2m diameter pipe sections and ten-tonne tunnelling machines!"
 
It will take until the middle of September to lay the pipe through the golf club. The plan is to use the new 18th hole as a practice green after the course is reinstated and put back to normal.
 
United Utilities is building the £125 million pipeline between Liverpool and Bury to help safeguard water supplies for people across Manchester and Merseyside for decades to come. The project involves building 25 tunnels at various river, railway and motorway crossings.
 
Around 10km of the pipeline route passes through Bury, including tunnels under the River Roch and the M66 motorway and the East Lancashire Railway.
Work on the pipeline started last summer and will take two years to complete. As the area is very built up, golf courses present some of the last remaining open spaces. United Utilities engineers have chosen a pipeline route that takes in five golf courses, to minimise disruption along busy roads and through residential areas.
 
Dave Schofield, project liaison manager for United Utilities, explained: "This is the single biggest scheme we are working on at the moment. The engineering challenges are huge, particularly the logistics of laying 55 kilometres of 1.2m wide pipeline without bringing the region to a halt.
 
"We are very grateful to the golf clubs for allowing us to work on their land, and we wanted to do everything possible to keep them open for business as usual throughout the work."