I've got 3400 clubs in my restaurant

My father, who is also called Roberto, began collecting golf clubs in the early 1990s, after a friend gave him a set. He began to trawl the local markets for old clubs, and would buy more and more every Saturday and Sunday. Pretty soon the collection was over the 1,000-club mark.

At this point, he decided to begin displaying them from the roof of our restaurant in Fuengirola, Spain. It was an instant hit with customers and soon golfers from all over the world were coming in to hand in their unwanted clubs, eat dinner and take a look at our unique ceiling display.

One of these customers reckoned we might have the biggest golf club collection in the world, so we contacted Guinness, who sent someone down to count them all. It took them a while, but in the end they worked out that we had more than 3,400 clubs hanging from the ceiling and more than 5,000 clubs in total, which meant we did indeed have the largest collection in the world.

It was a great honour to be in the Guinness World Records, and the resulting publicity has made us even more popular with golfers. A lot of our customers are touring parties from Britain or Scandinavia, but we’ve also served the likes of Lee Westwood, Jarmo Sandelin and Per-Ulrik Johansson. Add in some footballers, actors and a bunch of celebrities, and there is barely a dull moment at Casa Roberto!

When there is some down time, I like to take some of the clubs out for a knock about. As well as running the restaurant, I’m also a professional golfer, so I like to see how the old-fashioned blades and small-headed woods play. The answer is they don’t fly as far as modern clubs, but they feel much more lively. Nowadays every club is very similar and really forgiving, so it’s great fun to experiment with clubs that feel completely different and punish off-centre hits.

Everyone who comes into the restaurant says they can’t believe there is any more space for clubs, but I can assure you that there is, so would love anyone who comes to Fuengirola to donate their old woods or irons. I can’t promise them pride of place – that belongs to the clubs signed by professionals – but I can promise that we’ll add to our record by hanging them somewhere.

Casa Roberto is on Calle España in Fuengirola, Spain. To make a reservation call +34 952 465809.