According to Hugh Daly, the author of a history of Cliftonville Golf Club, Sir William Frederick Neill (1889-1960) an estate agent and an Ulster Unionist politician (Lord Mayor of Belfast from 1946 to 1949 and MP for North Belfast from 1945 to 1950) bought land on which Cliftonville Club club had 18 holes leaving the club with just the land leased from the Belfast Water Commissioners and thus becoming a 9 hole golf club. Neill built Joanmount housing estate on it which he named after his daughter Joan. Daly wrote: “There is a legacy of the 18-hole golf course - nearly all the streets that were built near or on the land sold by Cliftonville Golf Club were named after prestigious golf courses. I assume that this was part of the sale agreement between Sir William and Cliftonville Golf Club”.
"Resolved - That the following names for new street be approved: "Hoylake Park", "Formby Park", "Wallasey Park" and "Prestwick Drive", for new streets off Oldpark Road on the property of Mr. W. Neill". (IC, 20th January 1936).
A number of Belfast streets take their names from well-known golf courses in Britain, reflecting the popularity and cultural prestige of golf in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, particularly among developers and middle-class residents.
These names draw on established golf clubs, (source: Hugh Daly), many of which were already prominent by the time the streets were laid out:
Sunningdale — named after Sunningdale Golf Club, Berkshire, England, established in 1901.
Meyrick — from Meyrick Park Golf Club, Dorset, England, established in 1894.
Coombe Hill — from Coombe Hill Golf Club, Surrey, England, established in 1911.
Prestwick — named for Prestwick Golf Club, Ayrshire, Scotland, founded in 1851, one of the oldest and most influential golf clubs in the world.
Wallasey — from Wallasey Golf Club, Wirral, England, established in 1891.
Formby — named after Formby Golf Club, near Liverpool, England, founded in 1884.
Hoylake — from Royal Liverpool Golf Club, Hoylake, England, established in 1869.
The adoption of these names reflects a broader pattern in Belfast street naming in which leisure, sport, and elite cultural references were used to lend status and identity to new residential developments.