Golfers have been teeing up to win a car park space for a year at the “Home of the Ryder Cup” in St Albans.

The novel prize was just one of many up for grabs over the past 12 months at Verulam Golf Club in London Road, where members have been supporting numerous fundraising events to help combat Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia.

As a result, a cheque for an impressive £10,000 has recently been donated to Alzheimer’s Research UK, a leading dementia research charity.

Club captain Richard Bird, of St Albans, said: “It’s a cause that’s touched a chord with so many people. My mum, Madeline, died with Alzheimer’s four years ago. She was 92 and had lived with the disease for six years.

“Although we visited her all the time, she’d insist we hadn’t been to see her for weeks.

“My mother-in-law, Olive, has also received the same diagnosis and although she’s in her 90s, she keeps asking where her children are.”

Ladies captain Jeannie Taylor, also of St Albans, added: “Nearly everyone I speak to these days seems to know someone affected by this disease, and other dementias.”

Verulam Golf Club organised a wide range of fundraising activities for the charity, which provides grants for research, with Jeannie explaining, “The prize of a week’s holiday in a villa on the Costa del Sol raised a huge amount, as did a signed Arsenal football shirt and the novel idea of winning a car park for a year at the club.”

Jessica Hiscocks, community fundraising officer at the charity, said: “We are hugely grateful to everyone at Verulam Golf Club for their outstanding efforts. Raising £10,000 is an amazing achievement and will bring our scientists closer to finding treatments that will change the lives of people living with Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias.”

• Over 14,000 Hertfordshire residents are among 850,000 people across the UK living with dementia.

• Alzheimer’s Research UK is currently supporting research projects worth over £26 million in leading universities across the United Kingdom.