When Mark Robinson became chairman of Lydney Golf Club a couple of years ago, it was a role for which he was pretty well suited.

He was captain of the club in 2012 after serving as vice-captain the previous year and he was also chairman of the junior section at Lydney Town Football Club for three or four years back in the day when his three oldest boys – Martyn, James and Philip – were coming through the ranks.

So he had a fair idea of what to expect when he took on the top role at the golf club, a golf club he has been a member of for the past 12 or 13 years.

The 47-year-old, who first took up golf close on 40 years ago, started playing at Lydney a lot more when his youngest son Jack, now 19, became interested in the sport when he was eight or nine.

“I became the junior organiser for two or three years,” said Robinson, who has been one of the driving forces at the club for a good number of years now even though Jack no longer plays.

And Robinson is very proud of everything that has been achieved at Lydney Golf Club.

“We’re a true members club,” he said. “We built a new course which we moved onto in May 2011. That was a big effort. We did some serious fundraising and bought some land. We also entered into a contract with Bristol and Avon who tipped on some of the land and this enabled us to build what we have now.”

And the hard work has certainly been worthwhile even though they are still working on the course.

“That never stops,” added Robinson. “We’ve planted 4,000 trees and it will take another 10 to 15 years for them to mature. But every year the trees grow more and more and make the course more challenging.”

And while the trees are clearly a work in progress, there are other very important factors that are already in place that go towards making a good golf club.

“We’ve got a fully automated sprinkler system around the site and all the greens are USGA standard, they are top quality,” added Robinson.

The nine-hole course measures just over 6,000 yards in length and most holes have two different tee boxes which means a round of 72 is a par score.

Not that that is easy to achieve by any means.

“We’re very close to the River Severn,” explained Robinson, “and the course has got a real linksy feel. The ground is quite hard and the ball bounces a lot, it’s quite springy.”

That is particularly the case in summer but it’s something that the club’s 150 members are very much used to – a membership that includes a strong junior, senior and ladies’ sections.

And with people like Mark Robinson at the helm, the club will surely go from strength to strength in years to come.