WGC Golf Book Centenary FINAL

100

YEARS OF

W E LW Y N G A R D E N C I T Y
GOLF CLUB

By Keith Perry & Colin Callander
Foreword by Sir Nick Faldo

Designed by Lindsay Birch at Eight One Five Design
Text edited by Martin Smith

Illustrations and graphics by Ian Morgan
Published by Richard Painter, Print Resources

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In memory of Dick Reiss, Dick Litster
and those who gave their time in the past
so that others could enjoy Welwyn Garden City

Golf Club in the future.

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THE AUTHORS

Keith Perry is a former national newspaper journalist who
spent more than 30 years of his career at the Telegraph Media
Group where he was an award-winning sports editor of the
Daily Telegraph. He began his media career in Hertfordshire
before moving to Fleet Street, initially working as a sub-editor
and reporter of football and golf. He was a passionate advocate
of the Daily Telegraph Junior Golf Championships, which is now sponsored
by former winner Justin Rose, and has been a member of Welwyn Garden
City Golf Club since the mid-1970s.
Colin Callander is a former editor of Golf Monthly and has
also contributed to a wide range of other newspapers and mag-
azines in both GB & Ireland and the United States. Most re-
cently he was the Amateur Golf correspondent for prominent
online publication Global Golf Post. He started his journal-
ist career in Scotland at DC Thomson, the publishers of the
Dundee Courier and the Sunday Post. Colin joined Welwyn Garden City
Golf Club when he moved south at the start of 1990. He is also a member
of the Royal & Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews.

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FOREWORD

By Sir Nick Faldo MBE

Sir Nick Faldo with Charles Coody, the man who inspired him to try golf

It is more than 50 years since I started playing golf at Welwyn Garden City,
so I have been associated with the club for more than half of its 100-year
history. That’s very cool!

I remember saying to Mum and Dad that I’d like to try golf after watch-
ing Charles Coody win the 1971 Masters. When he walked into the locker
room at Augusta in 2021, I grabbed him and snatched a photo of the two of
us. I told him that I’d watched him win the Masters on television 50 years
before and that had inspired me to give golf a try.

After Coody’s victory, Mum and I went down to the club and booked half
a dozen lessons with Chris Arnold, the assistant. That’s how I started. I’m
not sure if I went down there much until the summer holidays when I got
my first set of clubs. Until then I did most of my practice on Monk’s Walk
School’s playing fields.

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I do remember my first round at Welwyn because it was on my 14th
birthday. I three-putted the third and remember thinking ‘that’s stupid, I’ll
never do that again!’. What I remember most is that I was playing on my
own. I think I hit in the mid-80s, but I lost three balls and didn’t know what
the rule for that was so probably scored nearer 90.

I will always have a lot of feelings for Welwyn Garden. It was the only
course I played as a kid. I didn’t travel much, I went down there every day
and entertained myself, playing hundreds of rounds there.

By the time I was 15 I knew I wanted to be a professional golfer so when
I left school at 16, I spent a lot of time on the practice ground. It was only
really half a hole in the corner of the golf course, so I used to go down early
in the morning and hit balls the opposite way. I’d hit them down the 17th
fairway so I could practise my long shots, but I had to pick them up quickly
before the members got round. I’d then spend the rest of the day on that
half hole. I had one green, one bunker and one pin. My first goal was to hit
the ball over the bunker and stop it short of the pin. Modern psychologists
would say that is fantastic targeting. I was always focused on a target so that
did me the world of good.

Welwyn Garden was a simple club. I only played with a few members, but
we had a great captain in Clive Harkett. Clive was the first person to really
support the junior team and he did a lot for me. I also remember Chris
Allen, who won lots of club championships. I remember I played him one
year in the final and after he beat me he said ‘that’s the last time I’ll do that’.
He was right!

I also met a young guy there by the name of Del Bingley and Del is still
my mate 50 years later. Then there was the head professional Ian Connel-
ly. I believe Chris Allen tells a story about Ian predicting that I’d win The
Open. I don’t remember him ever saying that to me but I do remember we
did a lot of short game challenges. Ian was very good with his short game. I
remember one thing he said to me was that ‘you should never be more that
two-feet off line on a chip shot’. That kind of stuck with me.

I have so many fond memories of Welwyn Garden City Golf Club and
wish everyone a very happy centenary year.

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FROM THE CAPTAINS

A Warm Centenary Year Welcome

We are honoured to be club captain and lady captain for Welwyn Garden
City Golf Club’s centenary year. Our association with the club is a long one
and between us we have been members for 89 years!

WGC Golf Club has been a major part of our lives. In fact, we both met
our life partners through the club and have much to be thankful for. We
have made many great friends during our years of membership and our
superb golf course is always a pleasure to play.

This book reveals that our club has an amazing history, and, as we reflect
upon this, our celebratory centenary publication underlines the fact that we
have much to be proud of.

We hope that all our members enjoy the celebrations planned for the
centenary year and extend a warm welcome to visiting guests and societies.
We trust that in 2023 everyone enjoys all the club has to offer both on and
off the course.

The members make WGC Golf Club what it is, and we would like to
thank you all for your support and kindness over many years. Happy read-
ing and happy centenary year!

John Horsley and Marlene Duke. January 2023

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CONTENTS

Foreword Sir Nick Faldo MBE 5

From the Captains A Warm Centenary Year Welcome 7

Introduction A Club is Born 11

Chapter One Captain of 1923 17

Chapter Two The First Nine 27

Chapter Three Across the Lane 37

Chapter Four The Road to Modernity 47

Chapter Five The Nineteenth Hole 61

Chapter Six A Prodigy Arrives 71

Chapter Seven Ascent to Glory 81

Chapter Eight Nick Faldo vs Gary Player 97

Chapter Nine Tom Lewis 107

Chapter Ten The Ladies 113

Chapter Eleven Commemoration Jug 121

Chapter Twelve The Professionals 127

Chapter Thirteen Low Scores 135

Chapter Fourteen Men’s Championship 139

Chapter Fifteen Other Sections 151

Chapter Sixteen Club Anecdotes 157

Chapter Seventeen Club People 169

Chapter Eighteen Today and Tomorrow 179

Chapter Nineteen Anatomy of the Club 187

Chapter Twenty Roll of Honour 191

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INTRODUCTION

A Club is Born

Under the cover of darkness, a burglar broke into Welwyn Garden City
Golf Club’s modest wooden clubhouse, forced open the office door of club
secretary Dick Litster and removed a safe containing eight medal spoons, a
bottle of prussic acid and a pile of documents.

The spoons and prussic acid – destined to cure a plague of moles – were
easily substituted but the documents were not. Original records detailing
the club’s formative years had disappeared into the night.

In 1971, some 15 years later, the robbery returned to haunt Litster when
he was asked to provide WGC’s history for a book on Hertfordshire’s golf
clubs. Having joined in 1925, it hit home to Litster that with those early
documents lost, he was the last living person with knowledge of WGC Golf
Club’s origins.

A man of detail, the former civil service auditor went to work. Combining
his experiences and memories, old notes and yellowing press reports, Litster
created a comprehensive type-written history of the club’s first decade. As
Litster described: “Years that saw a few hardy golf enthusiasts contrive nine
holes out of a dell, a few ditches and many ups and downs and progress
painfully and parsimoniously to 18 holes and a clubhouse.”

In 2023, as WGC Golf Club’s centenary is celebrated, it is thanks to Lit-
ster that we can fully appreciate the evolution from a small group of enthu-
siasts and an unpromising piece of land to today’s immaculate course and a
650-strong membership.

Certainly, Litster and the club’s pioneering souls could not possibly have
imagined that in future years a WGC junior would stride the same ground
before marching on to win six major championships and reach the pinnacle
of World No. 1 golfer. But why not? Welwyn Garden City, according to its
founding father Sir Ebenezer Howard, would be a land of opportunity.

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And how marvellous it was that Litster, a Scotsman from Edinburgh who
died aged 90 in 1988, lived to see WGC’s Sir Nick Faldo win his first Open
Championship at Muirfield in 1987.

In producing Faldo, WGC Golf Club delivered the town’s most famous son
and, to date, Europe’s most successful golfer. The club is inextricably linked to
the Garden City movement and Faldo can be said to embody Howard’s phi-
losophy: the belief that life opportunities would be greatly elevated by the cre-
ation of modest-sized towns with industry, open spaces and decent housing.

Faldo, who today lives in the United States, has been something of an
evangelist for both town and golf club, making frequent references to both
during his commentaries from global golf tournaments. Faldo’s successful
post-playing career as a broadcaster in the ruthless world of American tel-
evision – until his retirement last year – underlined the fact that the boy
from a council house in Knella Road spectacularly grasped the opportunity
presented to him by WGC and its golf club.

Perhaps Faldo would recognise a soulmate in WGC Golf Club’s first cap-
tain, Richard Reiss, the subject of this book’s first chapter. Reiss, like Faldo,
was a man of single-minded determination. One of Howard’s most influen-
tial lieutenants and a director of the Welwyn Garden City Company, Reiss
was the original brains and engine behind WGC Golf Club, involved in
every aspect of its beginnings.

There was a financial as well as philosophical incentive behind Reiss’s en-
thusiasm. At the age of 69 in 1919, his friend Howard had taken on a mas-
sive debt – the equivalent of £2.8 million today – following the purchase of
land for his second Garden City. Howard had founded his first, Letchworth,
in 1903. This time Howard and his associates had taken an enormous risk
in attempting to build a town on agricultural land with no existing roads
or amenities.

The financial difficulties of the 1920s were not an ideal backdrop for
such an ambitious project and Reiss believed that a golf club would act as a
significant magnet in attracting newcomers. It is no coincidence that later
newspaper advertisements and posters highlighting the attraction of WGC
were adorned with pictures of the golf course. Billboards also encouraged
people to move to the ‘Hertfordshire Highlands’. In truth, there were no
mountains in WGC, but the golf club could at least boast one of the town’s
highest points – today’s 15th green – at 426 feet.

For many of those who had already taken a leap of faith in moving to
WGC in the early 1920s, news of a golf club was a major moment. In his

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Russells (top), hosted the first WGC Golf Club
committee meeting in 1922, when it was known
as the Shack and owned by (above) Dr Hilton
Furnivall, captain in 1926. It is now (left) the
home of former captains Ron and Barbara Millar
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The Cherry Tree restaurant, where the golf club plans were announced

club memoir, Litster records that at a meeting on Tuesday, October 3, 1922,
46 inhabitants travelled the unmade and unlit roads to hear Reiss reveal his
plans, an impressive percentage considering the population was under 800.
Using hurricane lamps as their only source of light, the attendees’ desti-
nation was The Cherry Tree, an unpretentious wooden restaurant on land
today occupied by Waitrose. The Cherry Tree was the sole social hub of the
town and to put the period into context, BBC radio was yet to broadcast
daily.

Reiss told his audience that an expanse of land stretching from the edge
of Sherrardspark Wood to the Waggoners pub in Ayot Green, originally
earmarked for farmland, had been deemed unsuitable for food production.
Here was an opportunity to lease the land for £25 a year and transform it
into the town’s golf club. Barclays Bank, he announced, had already agreed
a loan for the project.

The plan was met with enthusiasm. A nine-hole design was approved and
a provisional committee of ten, comprising five men and five women, was
formed. That statistic is fascinating in itself – a 50-50 split of men and
women during a time in which only women over 30 who occupied a house
(or were married to someone who did) could vote in a general election. The
fledgling WGC Golf Club therefore reflected Howard’s ideals of opportuni-
ty and equality before a ball had been hit.

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Dick Litster, captain of 1928, who left a magnificent historical legacy
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Facilities in the town were limited to say the least, but the prospect of
breathing fresh air in the peace of Hertfordshire must have been akin to
utopia for many early golf club members who had so recently witnessed the
horrors of the First World War. Capt. Reiss was himself a war veteran and
during that gathering at The Cherry Tree another former military man, Dr
Hilton Furnivall, a retired lieutenant colonel in the Royal Army Medical
Corps, volunteered to become secretary and take minutes – albeit in his
indecipherable doctor’s script.

Dr Furnivall also offered to host committee meetings at The Shack, his
detached house in Russellcroft Road. That property, now known as Russells,
is today occupied by former captains Ron and Barbara Millar, attendees
themselves of countless WGC Golf Club meetings.

Litster tells us that as committee wheels turned, those present were gener-
ously lubricated via Dr Furnivall’s habit of sliding a bottle of whisky round
his dining room table. The principals thankfully stayed sober enough to
formulate the club’s structure, finances and core principles, committing 17
rules to paper.

Subscriptions were to be two guineas (£2.10 in today’s currency). Visi-
tors’ tickets would be available at Welwyn Stores or Barclays Bank for one
shilling (five pence) midweek and two shillings at weekends. Notices of
meetings, competitions and social events would be published in the Welwyn
Garden City News, the official newspaper of the WGC Company Ltd, which
was issued free to every household each Friday.

On Saturday, January 13, 1923, Dr Furnivall once again opened his door
to the committee, heralding a hugely important event. For on this day, a
show of hands would approve the club’s constitution and budget for pres-
entation at the first AGM in March. The nuts and bolts of the club were
in place and the path clear for a significant sports facility to be added to
Howard’s Garden City.

As one of the town’s early medics, Dr Furnivall had delivered many of
WGC’s new citizens. On this occasion, he proclaimed the birth of WGC
Golf Club. As Dick Litster wrote: “The stage was set. The actors were paw-
ing impatiently in the wings: CURTAIN UP.’’

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CHAPTER ONE

Captain of 1923

Meet the first captain of Welwyn Garden City Golf Club, the remarkable
Richard Leopold Reiss.

A war hero, barrister, town planner, social reformer and a founding father
of WGC, Reiss stood for Parliament eight times, received a knighthood
from the King of Norway and helped rescue a group of young Jewish men
from almost certain death in Nazi-oppressed Europe. A friend and colleague
of prime ministers, he played a major part in helping David Lloyd George
resolve the calamitous national rail strike of 1919.

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Appointed captain of WGC Golf Club at the first AGM in March 1923,
Reiss spearheaded the golf club’s creation and as a director of Sir Ebenezer
Howard’s Welwyn Garden City Company, formed the town’s early core of
sports and youth clubs.

An outstanding academic, ‘Dick’ Reiss left Balliol College, Oxford, with
a Double First in Law and Mathematics. He lived with his family at 51
Brockswood Lane, in the shadow of the WGC golf course and was found-
er, chairman, captain, director, president and life member of the club. The
Reiss trophies – for men and women – which he donated in 1928, remain
coveted competitions.

When he died aged 76 in 1959, Reiss had barely started an autobiography
in which he planned to focus on the social history of WGC. Reiss’s widow
Celia, mother of his five children, ensured her husband’s achievements re-
mained for posterity by publishing a memoir of his life.

This rare book, simply entitled R.L. Reiss, tells the story of a gentleman
from the highest of circles who was truly a man of the people.

At his public school, Marlborough College, where Reiss was Head Boy,
his peers included William Jowett, a future Lord Chancellor, and Geoffrey
Fisher, who became Archbishop of Canterbury. Historic names appear at
every turn of his life. Reiss’s grandfather was Sir Richard Baggallay MP,
Attorney-General under Benjamin Disraeli; he was the only student to be
privately coached at Oxford by William Beveridge, the architect of the Na-
tional Health Service and welfare state; he worked with Lloyd George and
Neville Chamberlain.

Despite his privileged position, Reiss’s major focus was the improvement
of living conditions for British families. He was inspired by childhood mem-
ories of visiting a boys’ orphanage in Blackheath financed by his wealthy
father. The image of seeing ‘small, ragged boys, often without shoes and
stockings’ never left him, and at Oxford Reiss picked up his father’s charity
baton, helping housing projects in Bermondsey.

By 1910, at the age of 27, he was fighting for a seat in Parliament as
the Liberal candidate for Chichester. He lost to the Conservative candidate
but his reputation as a talented and determined orator and social reformer
soared. Indeed, the future Prime Minister David Lloyd George, then Chan-
cellor of the Exchequer, asked Reiss to lead a major inquiry into housing
conditions in England and Wales. The Liberal government vowed to make
changes after Reiss’s shocking report, but the plans were scuppered by the
outbreak of war in 1914.

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Richard and Celia Reiss (top) with
their five children outside their home in
Brockswood Lane
Reiss wrote a landmark book (left) calling
for improved housing, particularly for
returning soldiers and (above) stood for
Parliament on eight occasions

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Reiss’s circle….Prime Minister David Lloyd George and (right) William Beveridge

Reiss volunteered and became an officer in the Loyal North Lancashire
Regiment. He served in Gallipoli, Egypt, India and Mesopotamia. In ap-
palling conditions in Mesopotamia, Reiss suffered malaria, sand fly fever,
colitis and anaemia. In 1917, as he led his men to attack while pushing the
Turks back beyond Baghdad, he was shot through a lung and spent several
months in hospital. A member of his regiment later said that Reiss’s bravery
was such that he should have been awarded the Victoria Cross.

After his recovery and the end of conflict in 1918, Reiss wrote a landmark
book called The Home I Want, stridently putting the case for decent housing
for all, particularly the returning heroes of the First World War. Shortly af-
terwards he was invited to become chairman of the Garden Cities and Town
Planning Association.

Reiss’s growing influence was such that he inspired a new town movement
in Norway. That path was set when he was befriended by Christian Gierloff,
a renowned Norwegian writer, economist and town planner.

Perhaps bizarrely, Reiss joined a circle which included Edvard Munch,
the artist who painted The Scream, one the world’s most iconic pieces of art.
Munch was a close friend of Gierloff’s and painted him several times. The
disturbing image of The Scream is said to symbolise the anxiety of humanity.
As a golfer, Reiss may have thought that the painting perfectly reflected the
agony of a missed 18-inch putt!

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The auction (above) for the sale of Panshanger House
(below) and its acres, bought with Reiss’s help by Sir
Ebenezer Howard (left). Top left: Reiss’s influential friend
Christian Gierloff ‘s portrait by Edvard Munch who
painted The Scream.

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Reiss visited Norway where he ignited the country’s town planning move-
ment with a series of lectures to packed audiences. In recognition of his
work, King Haakon VII made Reiss a Knight of the Royal Order of St Olav,
Norway’s only and rarely granted Order of Knights.

Gierloff’s friendship with Reiss left us with a priceless eyewitness account
of Reiss and Sir Ebenezer Howard’s first viewing of the land that was to
become WGC. Gierloff happened to be in Reiss’s London Chambers when
Howard called soon after discovering that Lord Desborough was to auction
his mid-Hertfordshire estate, which included Brickwall Farm, part of which
became the WGC course.

Gieloff’s description of what happened next gives an insight into a
different age:

One May morning in 1919 – the date would be important to histo-
rians – a telephone call came through to Reiss in his office in Gray’s
Inn. I happened to be sitting there. Having had a very short tele-
phone message he turned to me and said: ‘It is Howard, he was rath-
er excited. He asks me to meet him at the small tea shop near Kings
Cross.’ There we soon get an explanation. At Hatfield his attention
was caught by a poster telling us that a part of Lord Desborough’s
property (Panshanger House and its acres) was to be sold at auction.

The next train took us to Hatfield. We spent a long time walking
all-round the property. The only human being we met in the whole,
beautiful landscape was near the Manor, a colonel with his gun –
out to shoot partridges for his dinner, I supposed – but he watched
us with interest while Howard demonstrated up and down the es-
tate, THE ideal site. Reiss on the spot made up his mind.

He meant to make it possible to secure in time enough money for
the rather high deposit at the auction and would himself make a
first and solid contribution. Howard made his bid at the auction
(£51,000 for 1,457 acres), and we could heartily congratulate him
as a landowner, a rather big landowner. I have strong doubts that
Howard’s idea and Welwyn Garden City would have become a re-
ality without Richard Reiss, his vision, his whole personality to an
extraordinary degree, inspiring sympathy and credit, his energy
and calm efficiency, with his excellent staff and collaborators. I saw
wonders made from a wonderful idea.

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Later in 1919, during a period of significant post-war industrial unrest,
Reiss was part of a group surreptitiously formed to end a crippling national
rail strike. Negotiations with the strikers and Prime Minister David Lloyd
George’s ministers were deadlocked and such was the anger and frustration
that one union leader burst into tears because he feared the strike would
lead to bloodshed in the streets.

Desperate Downing Street officials decided to by-pass Lloyd George and
his ministers and identify a neutral figure of substance to intervene. Their
choice was Seebohm Rowntree, sociologist, future head of the Rowntree
confectionary empire and a close friend of Reiss. Rowntree agreed to help
and quickly secured Reiss’s brilliant legal mind. Working through the night,
Rowntree and Reiss created a document which became the basis of a settle-
ment.

Lloyd George’s cabinet had no idea that Rowntree was secretly meeting
the Secretary of the Railwaymen’s Trade Union and reporting the intricate
details back to Reiss.

Rowntree said later that it was Reiss who wrote a phrase of such brilliance
that it saved the face of the unions and paved the way for the strike to end.
When Andrew Bonar Law, who replaced Lloyd George as Prime Minister
in 1922, sat down with the railwaymen to negotiate the end of the strike, it
is said he had no idea that a settlement had effectively already been struck
behind his back – with a major part played by the future captain of WGC
Golf Club!

Reiss made three lecture tours of the United States, broadcasting on radio
and making up to six speeches in a day. In 1937 he spoke alongside Presi-
dent Roosevelt’s wife Eleanor at the National Public Housing Conference
in Washington before being entertained to tea at the White House. By that
time, having failed to win a seat in Parliament on eight occasions – once by
little more than 600 votes – Reiss had withdrawn from politics. His loss to
government was WGC’s gain and his influence continued into the 1950s
when he became vice-chairman of the Development Corporation following
the decision to designate WGC a new town.

In 2020 the author Keren David wrote in praise of Reiss in an article
celebrating WGC’s centenary. David, born and bred in WGC, highlighted
Reiss’s part in the rescue of young Jewish men from the Nazi regime in
Germany in 1938, some of whom were already in concentration camps.
Reiss chaired a small committee which masterminded the bold plan to bring
them to WGC. Another member, Wim van Leer, a Dutch WGC factory

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owner, was aged just 25 when he went to Leipzig and, massively against the
odds, arranged exit visas for the men. Reiss made available for the refugees
a house he owned in Applecroft Road. “Sometimes,” wrote David, “I think
how many Jews might have been saved if every town in the UK had acted
like WGC.”

On Reiss’s death, Mr Werner M. Lash, one of the rescued refugees, paid
this tribute:

When in 1938 life on the Continent for any dissentient of the Hitler
regime became unbearable and lives of human beings were deemed
very cheap – where man’s preoccupations were directed towards sur-
vival – a few men under the leadership of R.L. Reiss set out to make a
practical contribution towards humanity. Not for him, empty words
and speeches – not for him waiting and hesitating, hoping for a
change of heart on the part of the oppressors – he was a man of deeds.
Here was a cause which required immediate attention and fortu-
nately for me and 20 other young people who had been held in con-
centration camps of Buchenwald and Sachsenhausen – here was a
man who was willing to help.
Not only do I remember the material sacrifices he brought by placing
a house belonging to him at our disposal, but what stands out in my
mind most, is the great kindness he showed us when we asked him to
deal with our many problems.
What greater merit can be bestowed on a man to proclaim that
whilst each human being has only one life to live, R.L. Reiss has in
fact wrested 20 lives from the hangman, given them back their lives,
faith and hope in humanity. The name of R.L. Reiss is inscribed in
the Golden Book of Welwyn Garden City Hebrew Congregation, but
more important still, he is for ever inscribed in our minds and our
hearts as the epitome of modesty, kindness and greatness of mind.

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Reiss’s family tree is still growing

Dick Reiss was a fine cricketer and captain of WGC Cricket Club in addition to
the golf club. He was also president of WGC Football Club. Reiss was particular-
ly proud of creating WGC youth clubs such as Peartree and Ludwick – for boys
and girls.
Evidence of his golfing prowess is sketchy, though we know he played off a hand-
icap of 14 and was part of a WGC Golf Club side who beat Knebworth Village
8–4 in 1926, winning his match. In 1929 he won the cup he donated the year
previously, securing the Reiss Trophy with net scores of 64 and 68 and in 1930 the
Mannicotts Bowl was added to his trophy shelf
The Reiss sporting gene has been inherited by his great-grandson James Reiss, a
scratch golfer who plays at Aldeburgh and Sunningdale. James, also a talented foot-
baller, left the Norwich City academy at 12 and took up golf. By 17 he was the first
Aldeburgh member to gain a scratch handicap on the demanding Suffolk links.
James is a multiple winner of the Aldeburgh club championship and a Suffolk
County player. As a junior he led Aldeburgh to the Anglian League title when,
coincidentally, his team manager was Nick Davies, WGC club champion in 1972.
James won a golfing scholarship to the University of Iowa. He turned professional
for a short time, before a spell running a golf youth academy in Marbella, Spain,
and regaining his amateur status.
Now CEO of David James Wealth Management, James’s wife is Reanne MacKen-
zie who, like Dick Reiss before her, is a barrister. She was part of the legal team
who fought for Post Office managers in the scandal in which many were accused
of false accounting. That would have made Dick Reiss particularly proud.
“It was fascinating to learn about the work of my great-grandfather,” said James.
“I really had no idea about the extent of his influence.” James and Reanne became
parents to Rita in the autumn of 2022.
James’s father Nick, who died of a heart attack when James was six, was a key
player in the establishment of Barnham Broom Golf Club in Norfolk. James’s
grandfather was Stephen Reiss OBE, an expert in 17th-century art who ran the
Aldeburgh Festival and the London Symphony Orchestra. The Welwyn Times of
Sept 11, 1930 recorded that Stephen Reiss won a junior competition organised by
the ladies, playing off a handicap of 13.
Of Dick and Celia Reiss’s other children, Dr Bernard Reiss OBE is credited with
revolutionising General Practice after the Second World War; Richard Reiss Jnr,
who was also a WGC Golf Club member, became a renowned town planner and
member of the Town Planning Institute; Rosalind Reiss was a GP who married Dr
Alec Bangham, one of the UK’s foremost haematologists.
Reiss’s other daughter Delia, a teacher, married her childhood sweetheart Patrick
Heron, who lived with his family in Brockswood Lane and is now regarded by
many experts as Britain’s most prominent abstract artist.

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Patrick Heron was the son of Tom Heron who in 1929 established fashion com-
pany Cresta Silks, one of WGC’s foremost early businesses. At the age of 14 Pat-
rick produced his first design for Cresta Silks and was briefly their chief designer
while studying at Slade. In 2011 one of his paintings sold at Sotheby’s for over £1
million and his work can be found in many important public collections such as
the Tate Gallery and the National Galleries, Scotland. Cresta Silks, which closed
in 1980, was a huge employer of women within the town, including one Joyce
Faldo, mother of Nick.
The name of 1929 winner R.L. Reiss engraved on the trophy
(right) he donated in 1928

James Reiss, Dick Reiss’s talented great grandson and Reiss’s son-in-law Patrick Heron, once a
Brockswood Road resident who is regarded as one of the world’s most important artists

Having already established the boys’ club, Dick Reiss is pictured officially opening Peartree Girls’
Club in 1951

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CHAPTER TWO

The First Nine

The men who turned a golfing dream into reality (clockwise from top) Reiss, Ogilvie, Wadland and Leitch
Illustrations by Ian Morgan

During the autumn of 1922, Dick Reiss invited fellow Englishman Joe
Wadland and Scots Duncan Leitch and Sandy Ogilvie to meet at the dell
on a small, undulating parcel of land on Welwyn Garden City’s outskirts to
the north of Brockswood Lane.

27

The land had been considered unsuitable for agricultural purposes and
their task was to ascertain whether this was a suitable place to build the
town’s first golf course. Reiss and his friends took little time to decide that
a large dell and several ponds and ditches would make fine natural hazards.

It is arguable that what attracted them most to this much-maligned site
was its proximity to the back door of the Waggoners public house at Ayot
Green, hosted at the time by the popular Jack Cliffe. The quartet under-
stood immediately that this former staging post on the Great North Road
would be perfect for thirsty dehydrated golfers and, with that in mind, wast-
ed no time mapping out a rudimentary nine-hole course.

The course started on what is now the 12th hole before meandering to-
wards the Waggoners and then back towards the dell (see course plan). The
sixth was on what is now the 15th, while the seventh and eighth were situ-
ated on land now swallowed up by the A1M. The 2,400 yard lay-out con-
cluded on what is now the 16th green.

It was no surprise, given the haste in which the course was opened for
play, that its condition attracted much criticism from founder members.
Evidence suggests that golfers were thrashing balls around on the land many
weeks before the club’s first AGM on March 24, 1923.

The length of grass on the fairways caused particular unrest and the un-
der-fire committee was forced to introduce a local rule allowing golfers to
carry a scythe to improve their lies.

It was an inventive solution, but it did little to improve the prevailing
mood of the membership. Nor was morale lifted when at the end of 1923
the committee indicated it was to add some bunkers to the course. That
initiative was announced through the Welwyn Garden City News and was
accompanied by a dire warning: “Members will find there is more to the
game of golf than keeping a straight course; and that, next season, a stroke
that is over- or under-pitched will be suitably punished.”

Dick Litster, captain in 1928, recalled that complaints about the fairways
continued to escalate well into 1924, finally forcing beleaguered club offi-
cials to bow to pressure and purchase a Dennis Motor Mower to replace
the original horse-drawn machine. It was bought for the-then not incon-
siderable sum of £90 (£6,000 today) and was primarily funded by a £50
interest-free loan from the ubiquitous Reiss. Other members provided a
further £30 on the same terms, while the remaining £10 was allocated from
the operating budget.

The decision to purchase the mower went some way to placating the

28

Welwyn’s dell boys: Reiss, Ogilvie, Wadland and Leitch gathered on an autumn day in 1922 and were
impressed by the proximity of the land to the Waggoners Illustration by Ian Morgan

29

The length of grass was a contentious issue – not surprisingly as it was cut with a horse-drawn mower like
(above left) one photographed in 1919 on what is now Parkway in WGC town centre. Things improved
with the purchase of a Dennis Motor Mower (opposite). At least frustrations could be eased with a visit to
the Waggoners (above right), which sat on the kerb of the Great North Road but was accessed by golfers via
the back door. Below: Players of the 1920s putting on the second and fifth greens on the original nine-hole
course.

30

31

members. However, it did not meet with the total approval of the club’s
first greenkeeper, John Blencowe, who was paid a mere £3 a week (less two
weeks’ unpaid holiday) and made ends meet by selling lost balls back to
members.

“Greenkeeper John Blencowe did not really approve of this new-fangled
contraption which could be temperamental about starting; requiring a tick-
ling of the carburettor, a snappy swing of the handle and an even snappier
swing into the seat,” Litster recalled. “He was appeased, however, by being
allowed to give lessons in his free time.”

It appears the fairways did start slowly to improve following the purchase,
but the same cannot be said about the rough which was so unkempt that it
made finding golf balls almost impossible. That in turn led to an unofficial
rule being approved by a sizeable group of members limiting to a dozen the
number of balls which could be brought on to the course.

“When these had been lost, the players could then adjourn to the Waggs
for refreshment prior to an organised ball hunt – or indefinitely if the play-
ers so agreed,” said Litster. “Some members came to regard the latter as a
pleasant way of playing golf,” he added.

In 1925, to solve the problem, the committee employed a local farmer to
cut the rough twice during the summer season. However, this did not have
the desired effect for reasons which became apparent as the year progressed.

“The decision was to enter into an agreement to cut the rough during the
summer,” Litster wrote. “The negotiating was tough; the local farmer – and
I had some sympathy with his point of view – argued that the configuration
of the patches of rough made cutting a tricky, sometimes dangerous and
overall an uneconomical operation. Eventually, however, he agreed to cut
the rough twice in the summer season free of charge, paying, to the best of
my recollection, £5 for the resultant ‘hay’.

“The word ‘hay’ should have put the committee on their guard; but they
were lulled into a false sense of security by a spring cut of new grass to start
the arrangement off. However, the grass grew and grew and balls and balls
got lost.

“The committee had expected the second cut to be mid-summerish; but
the farmer was determined to get maximum growth for his winter feeding.
It would need a separate story to tell of the variety and ingenuity of the
excuses by which the farmer resisted the requests, the demands, the threats
and finally the pathetic pleas of a committee driven to distraction by an irate
membership – but the farmer cut the rough in his own good time.”

32

The First Course

33

The condition of the original greens was also far from satisfactory, and
that led to the club’s honorary secretary, Albert Miller, recommending to
the committee that the club spend ten shillings and sixpence (55p) to ob-
tain advice from the newly-founded Scientific Advisory Greens Committee
(now the Sports Turf Research Institute).

That recommendation was accepted and so Miller set about diligently
extracting samples from each of the club’s nine putting surfaces before dis-
patching them to the SAGC HQ at St Ives, near Bingley, in Yorkshire, for
their experts to test.

The SAGC’s report has long since been lost, but Litster recalled the guid-
ance it contained was simple enough. “The advice we non-expert members
of the committee took in was to build up the greens by feeding and dressing
in moderation and by periodic spiking to aerate the roots.”

Even today that would be regarded as sound advice but, inadvertently, it
was to lead to further unrest among the membership when the committee
decided to purchase some “well-rotted manure” to be spread across the put-
ting surfaces.

Golfers already had to contend with the unpleasant aroma from a nearby
piggery and the arrival of this manure only made things worse.

“A member who protested that the spreading of manure on the greens
made putting even more distasteful than usual was given assurance that
By-Law 12 relating to the cleaning of muddy balls would be interpreted
liberally.” Litster recalled. “He had started a thought, however, and the
next year an order was placed for a new-fangled fertiliser advertised as
being ‘well-balanced food for greens, easy to apply and quite pleasant to
handle’.”

That was progress and so were the first tentative steps to increase the size
of the greens staff. “Blencowe wanted more than ‘well-rotted manure’. He
wanted help,” Litster recalled.

“Perhaps there was a connection between the two. So, he was required to
produce a weekly report showing day-by-day what he had done. The greens
committee were to examine every day what had actually been done and
what had to be done. Finally, it was agreed to give him help on two days a
week for three months of the year. With unemployment running at a mil-
lion and a half and rising, it was not hard to get casual labour.”

Such teething problems were to continue well into the late 1920s and
beyond, but they did nothing to stop the club flourishing, or detract from
members playing competitive golf.

34

The committee announced early in 1923 that a Silver Spoon competition,
open to all members who paid an entry fee of one shilling (five pence),
would be held on the last Saturday and Sunday of each month and suggest-
ed members should endeavour to obtain a copy of the official Rules and
Etiquette of Golf. Litster hinted that this advice was largely ignored as was
another plea to brush up on the club’s local rules and by-laws.

Despite this somewhat cavalier attitude towards the Rules, and further
initial problems awarding handicaps to so many new players, competitive
golf flourished. The club historian recalled the first Easter competition was
played in 1924 over 36 holes against bogey and was won jointly by Ogilvie
and Wadland, both experienced golfers. There was also a mixed foursomes
staged over the same holiday in which a team representing the Handside
Lane area defeated opponents representing Brockswood Lane five matches
to four.

The first ladies-only competition was played between December 1 and 2,
1924, by which time 45 ladies had handicaps, and was won by a Mrs Herne
with a net 86 (110 less 24). It was noted competitors were allowed to play
nine holes each day or do the whole 18 at one time.

The inaugural inter-club matches were contested against East Herts in the
autumn of 1925 with both ending in defeat. In the first, played at WGC,
the home side shared the foursomes two matches all but then lost the sin-
gles 4–2. The return match at East Herts proved even more one-sided with
Messrs Blackborow and Judson being the only winners in the foursomes
and club treasurer, W.H. ‘Washy’ Washington, providing the sole point for
WGC in the subsequent singles.

The club was clearly becoming an attractive proposition for a growing
number of WGC inhabitants: membership figures were 150 in 1925 and
rose to 170 the following year. However, that, in turn, was putting increased
pressure on the club’s existing nine holes, which was why the committee
proposed at the 1926 AGM, held at The Cherry Tree, that the course should
be doubled in size with immediate effect.

“The question of the extension of the course to 18 holes was discussed,”
recalled Litster. “R.L. Reiss outlined the scheme which the committee rec-
ommended should be passed by the members. This was to lay out a fur-
ther nine holes in the piece of ground lying immediately to the south of
Brockswood Lane and to the west of High Oaks Road, extending beyond
Mannicotts and along the Valley Road to the Lemsford footpath to the
Great North Road.” The plan was agreed unanimously.

35

The First Club Budget

Welwyn Garden City’s inaugural budget was presented to the committee by treasurer and
future club Captain, W.H. ‘Washy’ Washington, on January 13, 1923, and differs starkly
from budgets produced a century later for what has become a business with a turnover of
around £1 million a year.

Loan from WGC Company (to be repaid over four years) £100
Subscriptions £175
Green Fees £5
Total Income £280
Less
Preliminary Expenses £17
Rent £25
Purchase of Hut £14
Lawn Mower £10
Horse-Drawn Mower £21
Other Equipment £20
Greenkeeper’s Wages at £3 a week £150
Hire of Horses £20
Total Expenditure £277

Leaving an estimated balance at the end of 1923 of £3

Card of the Original Nine Hole Course

Hole Yards Special Bogey Revised Bogey

1 190 4 4
2 150 3 3
3 370 5 5
4 340 5 5
5 160 4 3
6 320 5 4
7 200 4 4
8 320 4 4
9 390 6 5
Total 2400 40 37

36

CHAPTER THREE

Across the Lane

This photograph was taken in about 1924 two years before the course expansion. The house arrowed bottom
left is today adjacent to the first tee.

Success in the early years meant that plans, under the captaincy of Colonel
‘Doc’ Furnivall, to increase the size of the course to 18 holes were passed as
early as 1926. Such was the growing demand that the landlords, the Wel-
wyn Garden City Company, became concerned that they might not be able
to use the availability of cheap golf as an attraction to the town.

Company directors and a club deputation met to discuss a mutually ben-
eficial scheme and, as always, Dick Reiss was at the centre of the action,
proposing a Resolution at the fourth AGM at The Cherry Tree on March
15, 1926.

37

Dick Litster confirmed: “Reiss pointed out that the alternatives were to
regard the existing nine holes as a nucleus of a more permanent course and
extend over the neighbouring land across Brockswood Lane; or to treat the
present course as temporary and look elsewhere for a permanent course of
18 holes.

“The proposal he had to make was that the club should commit itself to
the view that, if and when it was able to, it would extend from the nine
holes across Brookswood Lane. If the club committed itself to this view,
the Garden City Company would proceed with the sowing of additional
land and he expected that it would be ready for play, apart from the greens
possibly, by September 1927 at the earliest.

“When the club took it over it would be asked to pay a rent based on the
value of the land as agricultural land plus interest on the capital expenditure
incurred by the Company.”

The proposal was adopted unanimously subject to the rider that “the de-
velopment should have due regard to the desirability of maintaining the
subscription as near as possible”.

Money and business were always on the agenda and at the same AGM a
proposal was ratified to convert the club to a limited liability company, not
for profit.

The nine-hole extension cost £800 and was paid for by the Garden City
Company. It covered roughly the area which today houses holes one to four,
10 and 11, and 17 and 18. It started on ground close to what remains the
first hole. The second and third were also on their current locations, but
the fourth criss-crossed the first to a green close to the current ninth green.

Players on what is now the 11th green enjoy the new acres
38

The Second Course

39

War-time golfers putt out on today’s 11th green with a flock of sheep in the background. One became a
Waggoners regular. Below: the fourth green in 1929, close to today’s 14th tee.

The fifth and sixth were then played over the land which currently houses
the 10th and the 11th before golfers crossed Brockswood Lane to play the
seventh to the 15th in the same way as they had done on the original nine.
The final three holes were played back across the Lane.

It was an ambitious project, so it was no real surprise that not all the new
holes were opened on schedule. Problems on some of the greens meant that
for the first couple of years the second, third and fourth holes had to be
played twice to complete the requisite 18 holes. The fairways were hardly
in pristine condition either, and that resulted in the committee introducing
a local rule which allowed golfers to lift and drop a ball without penalty,
“provided a club could be laid across the hole without touching the ball”.

40

The Third Course

41

Despite these teething problems the new 5,490-yard lay-out (5,260-yards
for the ladies) was seen as a massive improvement, although it did have its
drawbacks.

The club still had insufficient land for 18 separate fairways which meant
the course now had three crossovers rather than one. Two of those were
found on the new nine on the first and the fourth and the 16th and 17th,
while the third was across Brockswood Lane on the original second and
third holes. It is fair to say all three were to cause considerable consternation
until they disappeared in the 1970s.

The shortage of available land remained an issue all the way from the
1930s and into the 1960s, but that did not stop the club continuing to
prosper throughout the period. Membership stood at 272 in 1929 and rose
during the decade before the Second World War.

The outbreak of hostilities meant the club had to temporarily surrender a
sizeable patch of land on what is now the 17th hole and practice ground for
agricultural purposes. At the same time, sheep were installed on all other ar-
eas of the course. They were to prove a godsend in some ways, but certainly
not in others.

“The sheep indeed earned their keep,” Litster wrote, “for when the pro
and two of the three green staff joined the armed forces, they gladly took on
the burden of course maintenance, keeping the fairways very playable and
the rough shorter than it had been for years.

“This was held to outweigh the damage they did to certain greens by an
exercise of their natural functions inimical to grass. Nonetheless, serious ef-
forts were made to discourage them by fencing, the committee being of the
opinion that a sheep with a full bladder wouldn’t fancy jumping over such
an obstacle. But these sheep had a predilection for greens and just bulldozed
the fences; and the yellow sploshes multiplied.”

According to Litster, the sheep also appeared to bring out the worse in at
least some of the members not called up to help the war effort. “The pres-
ence of sheep on the course brought a new hazard to the game of golf,” he
revealed. “As viewers of One Man and His Dog will appreciate, not all sheep
are tame of spirit; and some of ours, which preferred the fairway grass to the
long grass, could be sternly defiant of raucous shouts intended to drive them
from their chosen pasture.

“These rebels led to the growth of two distinct groups of players: those
who tried to hit them amidships with a low skimming ball and those who
put golf first and tried to avoid them. It is, perhaps, not surprising that it

42

was the would-be-avoiders who scored the most direct hits. Generally, how-
ever, the sheep took it all in good part, save in the few weeks after shearing
when a direct hit could induce a stamp of annoyance before the victim shot
off out of the way.

“There was one confident enough to invade that convalescent home of
golfers, the Waggoners. She was known as Jane and regularly visited the inn
where she received a half of bitter from the tolerant Jack Cliffe. Any sand-
wiches left on the bench by the engrossed player of dominos or darts were
also devoured by Jane; although this was not encouraged as, once refreshed,
she would settle down comfortably on the ninth green to doze the afternoon
away instead of getting on with her grazing.

“As far as I know, despite the efforts of members and the Luftwaffe, all
sheep on our course survived,” Litster added. “But in those days of rationing
there was still something in the food line which could be acquired during
the course of a round.

“The first opportunity came at the sixth (now the 11th) where a quick
hop into the orchard could bring a few apples without a loss of place.
Across the road there were hazelnuts to be had and acorns for roasting to
make ersatz coffee; while horseradish could be dug up at the back door of
the Waggoners.

“Then back to the 16th hole (now the 17th) and the allotment area. A
hook off the tee could provide an excuse for a trip over the fence to recover
one’s ball (golf balls were in very short supply, the few manufactured going
to the Forces) and, if none of the allotment holders were about, there was
the opportunity of a quick snatch of the more readily concealable vegeta-
bles.”

The years immediately after the War were difficult for the club. In 1949,
membership had dipped to 350 and the club announced a record deficit
with income of £2,593 countered by expenditure totalling £3,321. Things
remained challenging throughout the 1950s, but by 1963 membership
had risen above 400 again with subscription income at a more sustainable
£4,500.

This increased income meant the club was able to accept the offer of a
parcel of land to the left of the sixth (now the 11th) and the Hawtree organ-
isation were brought in to construct a dogleg round the orchard (on what is
now the fifth, sixth and seventh) and to combine what were then the 12th
and 13th holes.

That development cost £773 and added eight acres to the 80 already in use.

43

The golf course became increasingly important to attract Garden City newcomers. The Welwyn Garden City
Company used a golf club image in the poster above and (opposite) as the main photograph in a newspaper
advertisement.

44

45

However, that was still barely enough to accommodate an 18-hole course,
so it was about that time that club officials began a concerted campaign to
lay their hands on the orchard itself. It proved to be a real challenge.

The Orchard had been laid out by a Dutchman in the early 1920s, but
subsequently a Mr Dollimore had taken over the annual tenancy from the
Garden City Company.

“Dollimore did nothing to keep the orchard in condition, merely culling
such apples as he could sell and occasionally burning the excessive under-
growth with a paraffin lamp,” wrote Litster.

“But technically he was the tenant of agricultural land. Even though it was
only an annual tenancy, we had to buy out his right to continued enjoyment
of it on the existing basis.

“Our new landlord, the Commission for the New Towns (who had suc-
ceeded the Garden City Company) was quite willing to lease the land to us
but they could only do so ‘subject to the Dollimore tenancy’. We knew this,
Dollimore knew this and had every intention of getting all he could, so the
negotiations were protracted – and frustrating.

“Just when we thought we had reached agreement that only needed the
signing of the document, Dollimore would change his mind – about the
amount, the rate of interest, or the period of payment – or seek to impose
conditions, like requiring access to the land to pick apples if we left any of
the trees in the new layout.

“When he ran out of ideas and the committee was running out of pa-
tience, he suddenly signed an agreement to surrender his tenancy right for
£1,500 to be paid in ten annual instalments of £150, the first on the 31st
of August 1967, with interest on the outstanding amount of five per cent
per annum.”

It was just as well he did because the land was badly needed when the
Ministry of Transport came calling three years later.

46

CHAPTER FOUR

Road to Modernity

The extension of the A1M meant a massive change for golf club members with the original course land eaten
up by the bulldozers. The building on the right is The Waggoners which was the club’s halfway house.

Rumours first circulated in the early 1960s about Government plans to wid-
en the A1M in the vicinity of the golf club. The rumours were soon proved
to be well founded.

In 1965 the club lost 60 yards from the second hole, enabling the Minis-
try of Transport to construct the B197 from the Valley Road corner to the
top of Digswell Hill. Much worse followed five years later when the same
department issued a compulsory purchase order for the land on which the-
then 14th hole had stood since 1923.

This drastic intrusion was to cause considerable disruption for the next
two years while the Hawtree organisation was brought back to design and

47

construct a new lay-out of the course. What was even worse as far as a size-
able part of the membership was concerned was that for the first time since
1923 the golf club was cut adrift from the Waggoners!

“It was 1970 when the Ministry of Transport arrived in full force to slice
off our old 14th hole and separate us forever from the Waggoners public
house, which had played such a spiritual part in the history of the club,”
Dick Litster wrote several years later in his club history.

“It robbed us of the possibility of taking a well-deserved break during a
round and meant the landlord could no longer secrete the odd bottle of
cider in the hedge for those players unlikely to make it to the back door
within official drinking hours.

“I still gaze longingly from the back of the 13th green across the quiet
B197 and the busy A1M and regret that stand-pipes providing a nice variety
of liquid refreshment have yet to be invented.”

The loss of the Waggoners was heartfelt, but the new routing was achieved
at no cost to the club after the Government agreed to pay £27,749 in com-
pensation (£447,000 today). Furthermore, the new lay-out was regarded as
a big improvement on the previous incarnation. It incorporated three holes
– the fifth, sixth and seventh – on land obtained after acquiring the lease
for the old orchard and, of more importance, also saw the disappearance of
the three crossovers which had caused havoc for successive generations of
players.

48