LYME Regis golfer Lindley Baker has swung his way into the record books as England’s longest-playing golf club member.

The 97-year-old has scored an 80-year membership of the Dorset club where he still plays at least once a week.

It is estimated that during his tenure Mr Baker has hit a ball more than 330,000 times – and twice scored a hole in one.

When he joined the Lyme club in 1937 the subscription fee was three guineas (£3.15), the equivalent of £197 today.

Mr Baker, who had left school and was working in the family hairdressing business in Lyme Regis, was welcomed, along with his younger brother Ron, as teenage players as the club wanted to boost its membership of young players.

Mr Baker said: "At that time you could only become an adult member if you were 21 and you could only become a junior member if someone in your family was a full member. But the club secretary of the time, Stephen Pocock, said he could stretch a point.

"Very few of the members back then were what you would call tradesmen, hairdressers like us, they were mainly middle class, many retired and a good sprinkling of ex-officers in the military."

The youngsters had to walk up the steep hill but at least they were not weighed down with a full set of clubs.

He only had three and Ron had two.

Mr Baker added: "The course was quite different in those days, there were very few trees and it was virtually wide open. There were some sand bunkers and quite a lot of grass bunkers. If you went in one of them it was more difficult to get out of them than the sand because they were seldom mown."

But the war interrupted his gold and in 1940 Lindley joined the RAF, serving as an electrical engineer. In 1942 he was posted to India but still found a little time for golf.

"I remember playing at the Royal Calcutta course, which had some unusual rules because each player had to have a caddy, but the caddy would not look for lost balls so you also had to have a ball boy who did that."

After the war Lindley returned to Lyme Regis and took up the game again.

He said: "I was doing quite well and I got my handicap down to eight in the 1950s – and then I got married and we had two children quite quickly and so my golf got restricted a bit."

He now plays mainly with his wife Daphne, whom he married in 1959.

He said: "Five years ago I stopped playing in competitions because I was getting slow and there is nothing more annoying than a slow player.

"But I am also the unofficial nonagenarian club champion. Seven years ago member Harry Scotting and I both reached 90 in the same year, and we were egged on by others to play a match of nine holes. Which we did and I managed to win on the eighth."

Mr Baker, who was made captain of the Lyme Regis Golf Club in 1985. says he wants to go on playing until at lest 2019 when he and his wife celebrate their Diamond Wedding.

John Owen, president of the Lyme Regis Golf Club, said: "As well as being the oldest member of the club, Lin Baker is also the nicest member, a true gentleman. It has been our privilege for us to have known him for 80 years."