par-four with two oak trees on either side of the fairway about 50 yards short of
the green. There was a pond beside the left-hand tree. If you felt that you needed
another beer you could do so after playing the short 13th. The pub was run by
the Cliffes and their daughter Clara, who was a member and quite a good golfer.
All this came to an end when the A1M sliced off that side of the course, sadly
leaving the Waggoners on the wrong side of the road.
In addition to single, fourball, foursome and mixed foursome competitions, there
were team events like the annual England versus Scotland members match which
I much enjoyed. This was very competitive, not only because of the pros we had
then but also because of the sizable Scottish contingent at the club.
Names that spring to mind are Tom Balfour, Hugh Anderson (whose two names
together were almost always the first to appear whenever a starting sheet ap-
peared), Jim Rollo, Eddy Fogarty and Bill Lawson. Having caught the golf bug
in Scotland, and with relatives there, I thought I should have been made an
honorary Scotsman for the occasion but never was.
About this time, other young players came along such as John Moorhouse, son of
Geoff, Ian Fordyce, Eddie Green and Trevor Powell. So, along with those men-
tioned earlier, there was a wide array of good young golfers around, giving rise to
a buzzy atmosphere and a real competitiveness.
However, little did we know then what was about to hit us very shortly with the
arrival of Nick Faldo. At first, we thought he was just a bit keener than the rest of
us, but it soon became very clear from his dedication and practice regime that he
had a very specific target in mind – to be the best.
On the occasions I played with
him, Nick appeared to improve
by the end of each round, and
then carry on from where he left
off the next time. His whole de-
meanour radiated professional-
ism, especially with the shot-mak-
ing and ball flight. I remember
my friends and I were chatting
to Ian Connelly in the pro shop,
a small hut at the top end of the
clubhouse, and he said that Nick
was a future Open champion. We
simply didn’t believe it, but how
happy we were to eat our words.
Sign here: Faldo with soulmate Harkett The 1975 captain was Clive
Harkett, an avid Welsh rugby
fan if ever there was one, with all
the characteristics in the form of
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Allen on Welwyn’s fairways with his proud parents
singing and downing beer. Clive’s nature was very much identifying with younger
members, and it struck me that Clive and Nick were in tune with one another,
resulting in a great atmosphere around the club at the time. I played Nick in the
club championship final in 1975. I had beaten him 1973 but by then there wasn’t
a ghost of a chance of a repeat.
Though I was playing all over the country in the 1970s, it was always great to go
back and enjoy events at the club, such as cheese and wine parties, functions like
Hogmanay and film nights. The latter were mostly of recent Majors or a Ryder
Cup.
Then there were members like Percy Copping, always at the club (bar!) straight
after work, Ray Izzard, Cyril Chessum, Laurie Wolder, and numerous others to
socialise with or play friendlies against. There was also Carol, an elderly and long-
time staff member who, whenever a meal included coleslaw, would pronounce it
colestraw! Fond memories.
Just before the first Covid-19 lockdown, I was pleased to learn that one of the
Litster daughters, Merle, was living near Toronto in Canada and, having been
given her email address, wrote to her saying how her parents Dick and Doris had
really helped me progress when I joined the club as a junior.
To my amazement, I received a long and detailed reply about her life in Canada
with her family. She also said that she never thought she would ever again hear
from anyone who knew her parents and was delighted to hear me speak of them
in such complimentary terms. She was also most interested to hear about the
book being prepared to mark the club’s centenary. We’ve kept up our correspond-
ence since, which included 90th birthday greetings to her in March 2021. I never
thought I would be in contact with a Litster again. Life has gone full circle for me.
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CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Other Sections
The Scratch Team
Relegation to Division Four of the Herts Scratch League loomed for the
Welwyn Garden City team in 2021, but 12 months later the club’s best
players were raising their glasses to a promotion-winning season.
In 2023 the club will be competing in Division Two, a massive turn-
around after a humiliating drop to the county’s lower regions was nar-
rowly averted. Scratch captain Ian Harpur galvanised the team so that in
September 2022 Welwyn sat on top of the seven teams in Division Three
after an unbeaten season concluded with victory at Brookmans Park.
Glory boys: the Welwyn elite players who delivered promotion in the Herts Scratch League
151
Veteran Andy Collie, who in one period went 19 years without miss-
ing a scratch match, said: “We went off the rails a bit in 2021 and it was
time to do something about it. Ian Harpur brought back the team spirit
and made us a team who wanted to play for each other again. We were
the Herts champions in 2004 so we were facing a big decline. The best
players in the club were not playing in the matches, but now they are.
Ian has made it mean something again.”
The club has been helped by an influx of new talent such as George
Ackerman, James Crabb, Hugo Christie and Jack McGregor. England
international Reis Suart was back in the team and elite juniors Harry
Cox and Louie Bloxham also stepped in.
“I’ve got some great lads,” said Harpur, who now has strength in depth
and can call upon 15 players with handicaps of scratch or better. In the
home match against Verulam Tom Philpotts and Owen Clouting made
their debuts and helped deliver an 8–0 win.
“We’re in a good situation now,” said Collie. “We want to get promo-
tion to Division One and in three years be county champions again. I
can look back when we had people of the quality of James Ruebotham,
Tom Piggott, Mark Laskey, Eddie Green and John Moorhouse in the
team, and I believe we are heading towards that kind of period again.”
WGG Golf Club 2022 Herts Division Three champions squad: Harry
Cox, Andy Collie, Ian Harpur (captain), Louie Bloxham, Dan Gibson,
George Ackerman, Hugo Christie, Paul Cross, Anthony Hodgson, Ben
Swain, Owen Clouting, Paul Slater, Reis Suart, Scott Broom, Tom Phil-
potts, James Crabb, Tim Gibson, Jack McGregor.
The Juniors
The conveyor belt of talent continues to roll smoothly, a fact under-
lined in 2022 by Harry Cox’s domination of county boys’ golf, winning
the leading four events from the Herts Boys’ Championship downwards
aged 15. Two rounds of 71 at East Herts Golf Club secured the Herts
Boys’ Championship by one shot. Cox was also the best Under 16 on
the day. He followed up by winning two more age categories on his
home course with a two-under round of 68. With Louie Bloxham, also
15, finishing 16th at East Herts, WGC were second in the team event.
The championship underlined the ability of Cox and Bloxham to pro-
duce high-calibre golf under pressure and confirmed the club’s ability
to continue to chase the big prizes in Hertfordshire golf and beyond.
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Dynamic duo Harry Cox (top left) and Louie Bloxham head a blossoming junior section including (top right)
Amelie Stewart and Eden Martin while Harry Cater is coaching his Saturday morning group
153
Bloxham followed up with victories in junior opens at Manor of Groves
and Berkhamsted where he was round in a one-under-par 71. Bloxham
has been elevated to England Golf ’s regional squad.
As a Welwyn junior in 2021, Reis Suart saw off the county’s finest
players to capture the Herts Men’s Championship. Having left the jun-
ior ranks behind, confirmation of his progress came when Suart was
selected to play for England in 2022.
Oliver Bloxham, another former WGC junior champion, also left the
junior age group in 2022 and now studies at Bath University. The sight
of Louie and Oliver Bloxham playing – often with their grandparents
John and Marion Andrews – has been a familiar one at the club for
many years. The third Bloxham brother, Thomas, is making his name
in football. An England Under-15 international, Thomas has been at-
tached to Tottenham Hotspur since the age of eight.
Louie Bloxham shone as a nine-year-old member of WGC’s juniors
and was put forward for county coaching by the then professional Stuart
Mason and junior organiser Phil Rogan.
Rogan, who relinquished his position after six years in 2022 to be
replaced by Marion Andrews, said he believed junior golf at Welwyn
would continue to thrive. He said: “When I took over there hadn’t been
a junior organiser for some time. It needed a formal structure and an
easier route to coaching. It was clear that Louie Bloxham had great tal-
ent and a good attitude so Stuart Mason and I helped link him to the
Herts coaching academy. It’s essential that the junior section offers good
coaching, and the professionals at the club – Shaun Collins, Harry Cater
and Curtis Whitelegg – have been fantastic. Another initiative we took
on was the England Golf ’s Girls Golf Rocks programme which had a
positive effect.”
The club now has a core of girl golfers and several more take part in
Harry Cater’s Saturday morning coaching sessions, which attract chil-
dren aged five to 12. “The whole idea is to get to the stage where we can
put out a junior team to compete with other clubs again.”
Junior membership is £100 per year, which includes off-peak access to
the course and 35 coaching sessions.
Head professional Collins said: “We’ve introduced a bit more vision
from the professionals and are making sure there’s an end-goal and a path-
way from junior to adult membership. The pros are helping organise the
coaching side and competitions and just trying to be involved a lot more.”
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The Seniors
Just as the grey pound is a massively important part of the UK economy,
the grey round is an essential factor at Welwyn Garden City Golf Club. The
senior men – 55 is the age when the term senior becomes applicable – are
the largest group at the club.
According to a report in Golf World in 2022, research found that nearly
two-thirds of golf club members are over 50 and a third older than 61. At
WGC Golf Club in 2022 there were 311 members over 55, just over half
of the membership.
Seniors at play during their Greetham Valley trip: Dave Parsall (top left) still swinging at 86, Bruce Nicolson
(top right), Doug Barson and Ian Collins and (bottom right) Malcolm Roe and John Ward
155
Sunshine trio: senior members Bob Luker, Jim Younger and Jeff Bloxham exude the joy of golf
Welwyn’s senior section is thriving. Various groups play the course
throughout the week. The Early Birds, who arrive on the tee at dawn on
Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, play annually for the Riser Cup against
The Scaffold, so called because they are reputed to hold everybody up!
Other groups have their own regular rendezvous at which money goes
into a pot and later into the pockets of the winners. Private handicapping
rules apply to ensure a fair distribution of wealth.
As well as internal competitions, the seniors play competitive matches
against other clubs under the guise of The Badgers. There are 24 annual
matches – home and away against 12 clubs – played in a friendly but com-
petitive spirit, followed by a convivial lunch. A large group of seniors travel
annually for a few days of competitive golf at Greetham Valley, a resort in
Oakham.
Seniors chairman Les Otty, who runs the section with a committee con-
sisting of Neil Saunders, Pete Hughes, Robert Lanwarne and Martin Chap-
man, said: “It’s very heartening to see so many seniors supporting the club
in competitions, various swindles and related activities. Friendly competi-
tion, exercise and social interaction are important ingredients for a healthy
and fulfilling later life. We are fortunate to have many octogenarians still
playing regularly and even getting their name on the winners’ list.”
156
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Club Anecdotes
The plot thickens
A couple of miles north of the course sits another piece of WGC Golf Club
where the greens are nurtured with equal care. In this case they are of the
vegetable variety.
In 1972 Charlie Shillingford and Don Loader secured an allotment in
Lockleys Drive, Welwyn. More than 50 years later the same plot remains in
the green-fingered hands of club members with a trio of ex-captains, Kevin
Hodges, Richard Roberts and Jill Callander, tilling the soil.
Shillingford was a true character who loved to entertain a clubhouse au-
dience with his wit and wisdom, whether his teeth stayed in or not. Hodges
gives the plot’s sub-plot: “The hilarious Charlie would openly tell members
that his mate Don was a scratch reaper but a poor digger. But that dynamic
duo continued to produce the goods until the mid-1980s before Charlie’s
health began to deteriorate and a young Les Whiteman was recruited from
the club. Charlie revived and returned to the plot, but the ‘boy’ Whiteman
was kept on until a new house called his at-
tention in 1993.
“Enter Big Norman Bonfield as Les’s re-
placement. Sadly Charlie died in 1994, leav-
ing Don and Norman to manage until a new
‘boy’ – Richard Roberts – was recruited in
2005. What a digger he is. Plus-four in golf-
ing terms but an abysmal weeder. Don died
suddenly in 2009 and Norman called it a day
in 2010 and that’s when I stepped in. The per-
fect combination: plus-four weeder joins plus
Home grown: Kevin Hodges, four digger!
Jill Callander and Richard Roberts
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“We were searching for an apprentice and in 2022 Jill Callander joined
the ranks. I’m glad to say she’s another scratch weeder. The WGC Golf Club
allotment thrives and hopefully will continue to do so for another 50 years.”
Don’t let them eat cake
Resistance to membership fee increases isn’t unusual and in 1946 tempers
became so frayed that directors and officials walked out when members
refused to back the Board’s financial plans.
Directors wanted to increase fees from four
guineas to pay wage increases as greenkeeping
staff returned from the Second World War. The
Welwyn Times said that the meeting was held in an
‘emotional atmosphere’ and director S.A. Pleasant
complained: “The four guineas fee is ridiculous. It
isn’t even a tennis club fee.”
The Welwyn Times reported: “Mr Pleasant
thought feminine opposition most pronounced.
He had heard lady members complain about
the one shilling four pence tea, which included
‘Washy’ Washington tongue, tomatoes, cucumber, jam and bread and
butter. ‘They wanted cake on Fridays,’ said Mr Pleasant, ‘and yet these peo-
ple thought they were paying enough’.” Even the club’s original treasurer
W.H. ‘Washy’ Washington quit. “I didn’t sleep all night,” he said. “I’m ready
to help all I can, although I saw the opinions of the directors and officials
challenged.”
Dalliances at the dell
The inaugural WGC committee were clearly worried that some of the first
influx of members knew little or nothing about the game of golf because
they felt the need to state: “No ball should be driven from any putting
green.”
Clearly the condition of the course was also a cause for concern because
another bylaw stated that “muddy balls may be lifted, wiped and replaced if
within 50 yards of the pin”.
“The decision to make distance from the pin the determinant factor was
prompted by the fact that at some holes, in some seasons, it was difficult
to establish where fairway ended and green began,” explained Dick Litster.
Members were also encouraged to prevent unauthorised persons from
158
loitering on the course and particularly around the dell which at the time
seems to have been regarded as a haven for courting couples.
“Members were left to their own discretion and experience to decide what
restraining action should be taken, always with due regard to the laws of
trespass,” confirmed Litster. “The position was clearly different where a
member’s ball had come to rest within two club lengths of a courting couple
and the member was entitled in this event to request the necessary adjust-
ment of position. A certain discretion might be advisable in the timing of
this request.”
Cross at the crossovers
For much of its earliest years in existence WGC was desperately short of
land, which is why its earliest 18-hole lay-outs had crossovers - between the
then first and fourth, the eighth and ninth and holes 16 and 17. Apparently,
they were the source of many an acrimonious dispute.
Dick Litster wrote: “No story of the Welwyn Garden City course would
be complete without reference to the crossovers and why members got so
cross with them. Up to 1972 we had three of them, inducing mental states
ranging from the frustrated to the frenetic.”
The most troublesome was the one on the eighth and ninth (on the land
which is now the 13th) which, following special dispensation from the
R&A, required golfers to hit their tee shots from both tees before proceed-
ing to the eighth green positioned close to the dell. It was the source of fre-
quent delays and much angst for golfers caught up in the ensuing logjams.
“That there was no headline in the Welwyn Times, ‘Double Murder on
the Golf Course’, must be attributed to the proximity of the Waggoners to
the ninth green where unduly high blood pressures could be reduced at a
modest cost,” Litster suggested.
A frosty reception
Dick Litster was captain in 1928 and as such was in the hot seat for what
was almost certainly the most calamitous dinner in the club’s history.
The dinner was organised by the ladies’ section and took place at the
Cherry Tree restaurant with 150 members and guests in attendance.
“It was the Great Frost – twenty-eight degrees of it in fact – and the Cher-
ry Tree radiators burst, flooding some of the rooms, threatening the dance
hall,” our hapless captain recalled. “And the gas was cut off bringing the
cooking of chickens to a standstill.
159
“Some were lucky and got three-quarter-cooked chicken an hour or so
after starting time. As the evening wore on, some were given half-cooked
chicken. And some got no chicken at all.
“All the carefully prepared speeches were cut out and the survivors were
encouraged to take to the floor about 11 o’clock for a protracted Paul Jones
(dance) designed to dissipate aggressive tendencies and reduce applications
for money back or even a partial refund.”
Interestingly, the Welwyn Times, ever supportive of the Welwyn Garden
City Company and its subsidiaries, chose to gloss over what had happened.
Instead, it published an article with the headline, ‘A Highly Successful
Event’, which just goes to show you can’t believe everything you read in the
press.
Welwyn’s Dad’s Army
During the Second World War members of Welwyn Garden City helped
to build a rudimentary guard post close to the golf course on the north side
of Brockswood Lane.
It was there primarily to protect the Digswell railway viaduct against an
airborne German invasion and, for a while at least, club historian Dick Lit-
ster was one of the volunteers enlisted to man it.
“The viaduct presented a very small and difficult target for high-flying
bombers, and it was considered that any attempt to destroy this key part of
the rail system would take one of two forms: dive-bombing by daylight or
dropping saboteurs at night,” our club historian recalled.
“The ideal dropping zone for such an operation with its ready access to
woodland was clearly the area near the (now) 11th, 12th, 13th and 17th
holes, so it was decided to construct a post where we cross over Brockswood
Lane.
“It was made of turf and sandbags filled with earth but had only two firing
positions. This was due partly to a shortage of sandbags but more impor-
tantly to the fact we only had two rifles. They were Ross rifles, as I remem-
ber, which had been rushed over from Canada where they had been used for
drill purposes and never fired in anger. So there a certain speculation as to
what would happen if they were.
“Our squad of half a dozen not very able-bodied men was in the charge
of an elderly member of the club who had two qualifications for leadership
– he lived high up in High Oaks Road and, so was nearest to the post for
speedy manning, and was retired and available 24 hours a day.
160
“Very firm in his leadership he was. When somewhat tired of humping
filled sandbags up to the height of five feet, I suggested to him that the post
was going to be rather obvious to both dive-bombers, who could have a go
at it, and paratroopers, who could keep out of range of it, and that in the
1914–18 War we had found trenches at ground level quite a good idea, and
that we would have an excellent field of fire down the 16th fairway at that
level. He brushed my argument aside. ‘We didn’t use trenches in the Boer
War’, he said, ‘just blockhouses’. And that was that.
“Today, as I write in 1975, there are two souvenirs of these war time days,”
Litster added. “What is now known as the Anti-Tank Salver was presented
in November 1940 by Colonel Tanner and the officers of the 59th Duke
of Connaught’s (Hampshire) Regiment who had been stationed in the area
and given courtesy of the course. The presentation, which was made on the
eve of their departure from the area, started with a dinner in the clubhouse
and ended in the wee small hours in their Officers’ Mess.
“The other reminder is the Victory Cup. That was presented in 1945
by the wartime captains who had not had to give Captains’ Prizes, annual
competitions having been discontinued for the duration of the war. The
captains, 1939 to 1945 were T. (Tom) Friend, H.R. (Henry) Barker, V.H.
Minton, E.J. (Ted) Power, W.R. (Bill) Price, K.S. (Ken) Davies and S.A.
(Stan) Pleasant.”
Keeping greens green
Welwyn Garden City Golf Club had only limited access to water during
the first 50 years of its existence, leaving the course to the vagaries of the
weather.
This was a particular problem in 1947, when the playing surfaces were
ruined by three months of ice followed by seven months of drought.
One of the first recorded mentions of watering the course came in 1951
when greenkeeper Jimmy Dunn was required to re-lay the third green for the
umpteenth time. Jill Smith, of Mannicotts, a future lady captain, provided
water via a hose in her back garden to the newly seeded putting surface.
In 1961, the club, somewhat belatedly, embarked on its first full-scale
project to pipe water to its greens with £1,450 set aside for the project. Six
greens were to be serviced from the mains supply while the other 12 would
have water pumped to them from a tank near the clubhouse.
Dick Litster commented: “It was expected the scheme would allow three or
four greens to be watered simultaneously. Hopes ran high. The water didn’t.”
161
That remark might have been a trifle unfair because the initial teething
problems he referred to in his notes were soon resolved and subsequent
annual reports show that the greens continued to improve throughout the
1960s. This process was accelerated in 1970 when £8,000 was allocated to
enlist the services of Watermation to install an automatic sprinkler system
to all 18 greens, and subsequently again in 1988 when that system was com-
puterised. The installation of the club’s reservoir in 2013 was the last piece
of the jigsaw and ensured the club will have a ready supply of water in all
but the most enduring of droughts.
That’s what you call a hole
Jimmy Dunn became Welwyn Garden City’s head greenkeeper in 1951
and barely a year had passed before he and his assistant, Willy Brand, were
forced to take emergency action when a nine-foot hole appeared overnight
on the third green.
A relaxed Dunn was convinced it was a swallow hole, but others feared
that an unexploded German bomb destined for the Welwyn Viaduct or de
Havillands aircraft factory in Hatfield may have been the cause. The Royal
Engineers (Bomb Squad) found nothing, and Dunn and Brand duly filled
the hole.
Dunn was to go on to be head greenkeeper for 22 years, ably supported by
Brand, who died in 1967 after nearly 30 years’ working for the club. Subse-
quently, only current course manager Brett Cox has served the club for longer;
he joined the greens staff in 1991 before taking over the top job in 2000.
Bob Hope takes the Road to WGC
There were few more famous people in show business than Bob Hope, the
British-born comedian and actor best known for the ‘Road’ movies made
with fellow golf fanatic Bing Crosby. It must therefore have been a surreal
experience for two WGC lady members in 1952 when Hope came into view
on the course.
Hope had stopped by at the club to play a few holes after visiting relatives
in Hitchin. According to the Welwyn Times, he had developed a slice and
wanted a quiet course to fix the problem. The ladies apparently suggested
his stance was to blame and he replied that Ben Hogan had told him the
same thing! He bade the ladies goodbye, telling them he had enjoyed the
tranquillity of the course. A lifetime of golf did no harm to Hope, who died
in 2003 aged 100.
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Showbiz legends who have walked the fairways of WGC Club: Bob Hope (top left), who played in 1952,
Frankie Vaughan with club captain George Burgess after helping raise money for Peter Cherry and Kenny
Baker, better known as R2-D2, who was part of the visiting Comedians Golf Society
163
More funny men visited the club in September 1980 when WGC played
a match against the Comedians Golf Society to raise money for a minibus
for Haldens School. Harry Worth, television comedy icon of the 1960s,
was a member of the comedians’ team which was bolstered by cricketer Ian
Botham and Kenny Baker, better known as R2-D2 in the Star Wars film
franchise.
Another star visitor was the legendary crooner Frankie Vaughan, who
played the course in September 1987. Famous for his song Give Me the
Moonlight, Give Me the Girl, Vaughan was also an actor who played opposite
Marilyn Monroe in the 1960 movie Let’s Make Love. Vaughan was support-
ing a cash-raising Texas scramble to enable the club’s young prospect Peter
Cherry to fly home from college in the United States to play for Hertford-
shire in the national county championships.
One’s in a hole
The tall, bespectacled Percy Copping was never seen without jacket and
tie – even when he played golf. A creature of habit, in the evenings Percy
would take a stroll across the course and on to the Red Lion or Waggoners,
ordering his drinks in a cut-glass accent before returning via the 17th fair-
way for a final dram in the clubhouse.
But one evening his routine was put out of kilter. Barry Whiteman takes
up the story: “It was getting dark, and I looked out of the clubhouse to see a
dishevelled, mud-covered character climbing up the hill. A hole for a pond
had been dug on the 17th that day and Percy, who didn’t have the best eye-
sight, dropped straight in it. He was shouting, ‘Who dug that bloody hole!’”
Percy was one of many members who worked at ICI and, until it closed in
the 1980s, was a permanent resident of the Guessens Hotel, which was part
of Guessens Court, adjacent to WGC town centre.
Earliest trophies
Club records indicate that the first trophy presented to WGC was donat-
ed in 1925 by that year’s captain, Duncan Leitch.
Leitch’s silver cup was awarded to the winner of an annual Captain’s Prize
competition with the players returning the best eight nett scores qualifying
for the quarter and semi-finals over 18 holes. The final was played over 36
holes between Bobby Alexander (15) and Sam Watts (24) with Alexander
emerging as the winner by 3&1. At some point, the original trophy disap-
peared and had to be replaced by a newer model.
164
We learnt in Chapter Ten that in 1928 the club’s president and first cap-
tain, Dick Reiss, presented two trophies, one for the men and the other for
the women. That same year Tom Ide donated another trophy for the ladies,
while Cyrus Morfey provided the Mannicotts Bowl for the men’s section.
All four are still played for as the club enters its second century.
Thereafter there was a steady trickle of other donations. In 1929, Sir
Charles Nall-Cain, of Brocket Hall, presented a trophy in his name. It was
first contested on Whit Monday that year when 30 members took part.
It was the committee’s intention to open the Nall-Cain Trophy to members
of all Herts clubs. Fortunately the plan was shelved because a decade later the
name of Nall-Cain became an embarrassment: Sir Charles’s son Ronald, 2nd
Baron Brocket, was exposed as a close friend of the Nazis. Indeed, in 1939
he attended Adolf Hitler’s 50th birthday celebrations. He was later interned.
Strictly WGC Golf Club
One of the more bizarre incidents at a golf club dinner dance took place
at The Cherry Tree in 1930 when a couple gave an impromptu – and appar-
ently wildly chaotic - display of The Charleston.
The couple were Frank Wells and his wife. Wells was the son of H.G.
Wells, the father of science fiction who wrote more than 50 novels including
The Time Machine, The Invisible Man and The War of the Worlds. Wells Jnr.
was inspired to hit the floor after a demonstration of ballroom dancing from
experts Phyllis Kitley and Leonard Andrews.
Wells, 28 at the time, went on to enjoy a stellar career in the movie in-
dustry as a producer, director and writer. His films included The Clue of the
Missing Ape and Things to Come, based on his father’s novel.
Wells lived in the area until his death in Welwyn aged 80 in 1982, but
his father was a fierce critic of Ebenezer Howard’s Garden Cities. He wrote:
“Why help dot the countryside for 60 miles round London on every side
with detestable little factory chimneys, each with its group of blighted
homes about it?”
WGC Company director Dick Reiss was at the rough end of another fa-
mous novelist’s tongue when G.K. Chesterton, author of the Father Brown
novels, visited WGC. Chesterton was a vehement critic of the WGC Com-
pany’s ownership of multiple businesses in the town. Reiss sat on stage with
Chesterton for a public debate on ‘monopolies’. By all accounts, the golf
club’s first captain was an elusive opponent and Chesterton failed to land a
verbal punch.
165
Holes in one
There have been many hole-in-ones scored over the past 100 years at
WGC, but two stand out because they were achieved on par-fours.
On August 13, 1989, four-times club champion Ed Green holed his tee
shot on the 311-yard 16th using an old Persimmon-headed Ben Hogan
driver. It earnt him a day out with Peter Alliss at Royal Mid-Surrey and a
case of Wolfschmidt Kummel liquer courtesy of a promotion running in
Golf Monthly at the time.
“I was playing in the Mannicotts Bowl in a two-ball with Ian Fordyce,”
Green recalled. “In those days the 16th was a very slight dogleg and had a
couple of poplars in the middle of the fairway, so we didn’t immediately
realise what had happened.
“I wasn’t really expecting to hit the green but, just in case, we waited until
the fourball in front had putted out before I hit my tee shot. The next thing
I saw was the four of them jumping up and down. For a second or two I
thought I must have hit one of them. But then I saw the guys on the 12th
tee also reacted and we realised what had happened.
“One of the guys in front told us later that he’d seen the ball running to-
wards him and had managed to pull his trolley out of the way. If he hadn’t
done that, the ball may well not have gone in the hole.”
Green described it as a ‘shot of a lifetime’, but he has claimed a total of
eight aces during his career as well as another two albatrosses.
Eddie Green receives a certificate for his extraordinary hole in one on the 16th in 1989
166
“The first albatross I had was when I holed a one-iron on a par-five on
the Red course at the Berkshire. The other was at WGC when I was playing
with Andy Dale in the club championship and holed out with a three-iron
for a two on the 10th. Dale, meanwhile, had hit his approach to two inches.
Between us, we played the hole in five shots. I suspect that’s never happened
since,” said Green.
The second par-four hole-in-one was achieved by another multiple club
champion, Marvin Joyce, on the 280-yard 13th on April 21, 2001, during
a scratch match against Old Fold Manor. Joyce said: “The match was very
close at the time. We saw my drive land just over the bunker and we knew
it was close but didn’t see it go into the hole.
“I had three other holes-in-one, but it was definitely the best of the four,
although it didn’t help me win my match, I seem to remember!”
Tony Reynolds claims the club’s most expensive hole in one. His ace at
the 12th in 1982 was followed by clubhouse celebrations. Reynolds, who
is now a member of Warkworth in Northumberland, explained: “It was on
a Sunday, and I would normally have gone home when the clubhouse shut
at seven o’clock. On this occasion my friends and I diverted to The Sun in
Lemsford to continue the celebrations.
“Later that evening I brushed past a girl sitting on a stool at the bar. I
apologised and told her about my golfing feat. Three months later my life
as a care-free bachelor was over and I was a married man with a massive
mortgage. I’m still married to Suzanne after 40 years and we have a son and
grandson. That hole-in-one cost me a fortune but was the best thing that
ever happened to me.”
Barking Mad
WGC officials have dealt with numerous rules disputes over the years, but
none quite like the one in 1928 when a two-part complaint was lodged by
an unnamed lady member.
The lady’s victorious opponent had allegedly played while carrying a small
dog in a bag in contravention of Bylaw 2 which required any dog brought
on the course to be on a leash. That complaint was rejected by the secretary,
but the second accusation was more difficult: the lady with the dog had tak-
en off her knickers during the match, complaining she was too hot.
The committee advised the complainant to refer the matter to the Ladies’
Golf Union who, they thought, would be better suited to adjudicate on
such a delicate matter.
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Vintage Harkett
Clive Harkett, captain of 1975, was a charismatic character and a massive
fan of the Wales rugby team. In March 1991 he flew to Paris for a match
in which Wales were defeated 36–3. Harkett returned as one of the first
passengers to land at the brand-new Stansted Airport, which had yet to be
officially opened. Former captain Peter Woodrow recalled: “Despite Wales’s
defeat, Clive landed with a bottle of champagne in hand, which he duly
dropped and smashed on one of the terminal’s pristine escalators. Without
missing a beat, he shouted, ‘I name this airport Stansted!’”
Clive Harkett, one of the club’s great characters who had a champagne moment at Stansted
168
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Club People
Lady Angwin
Lady Dorothy Angwin was a member of Welwyn Garden City Golf Club’s
original committee in 1922 and probably the only person connected with
the club to have launched two ships. Lady Angwin was the wife of Col. Sir
Stanley Angwin, a leader in the telecommunications industry. The Angwins
lived first in Brockswood Lane and later at 32 Guessens Road. As one of
three people with Lord Reith to officially launch the BBC television service
at Alexandra Palace in 1936, Sir Stanley, a keen member of Welwyn Rugby
Club, was among the first in the world to appear on a television screen. Sir
Stanley’s life in telecoms led to Lady Angwin launching two cable ships, one
named The Stanley Angwin. Lady Angwin was a district councillor, organis-
er of the WVS and instrumental in the building of the WGC town centre
Woodside House retirement complex.
Roland Bird
The name was Bird. Roland Bird. A senior editor and
executive at The Economist, Bird’s colleagues and friends
were stunned to discover upon his death aged 95 in 2003
that the WGC Golf Club captain of 1954 was a Second
World War MI5 operative who worked in counter-espio-
nage. Bird is named-checked in the diaries of the contro-
versial spymaster Guy Liddell. Bird (left) had a brilliant
mind and, after working as a 16-year-old in the accounts department of
a Northamptonshire shoe factory, studied part-time at a technical school
before emerging from the London School of Economics with a first-class
degree. A business editor, deputy editor and managing director at The
Economist, Bird is credited with creating modern business journalism.
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Former club champion Chris Allen recalled that Bird’s backswing was so
slow opponents could see the number on his club.
Maureen Borrie
In 1950, Maureen Borrie was the only
female student at Hatfield’s de Havilland
Aeronautical Technical School, becoming an
important aircraft engineer. Maureen, who
lived in Lemsford, attained a private pilot’s
licence, and later became a flight test observ-
Maureen Borrie er at Percival’s, whose factory occupied what
is now Luton Airport. The WGC Golf Club member helped develop the Jet
Provost, a high-speed trainer bought in great numbers by the RAF, sitting
with the test pilots as they put the aircraft through its paces. She died aged
72 in February 2006, and her husband Stan, also an aircraft expert, said:
“I have seen her do the most extraordinary aerobatics – rolls, loops and the
rest. I would have been violently ill, but Maureen was never uncomfortable.”
Maureen edited the magazine of the British Women Pilots’ Association and
was the mother of Ed Borrie, leader of the 1990s punk band S*M*A*S*H.
An article in The Guardian claimed that in terms of importance as a lyricist
of the period, Borrie was second only to Jarvis Cocker.
Shaun Collins, Ian Harpur
Shaun Collins, the club’s head professional, was an international athlete
who represented England in the steeplechase at under-20 level and as a
senior in cross-country. Collins was a multi-talented runner who shone at
distances from 800 metres to half-marathon. He competed for Enfield and
Haringey Athletic Club, but his running career was dogged by injury, lead-
ing him to concentrate on golf.
Ian Harpur, two-handicap captain of the WGC Golf Club scratch team,
was the Irish Under-21 5,000 metres champion. Harpur also finished sec-
ond in the All-Ireland Universities 1500 metres.
Dr Hubert John Fry and Dr Gladys Miall-Smith
John Fry and Gladys Miall-Smith were a married couple, who were
WGC’s first doctors and founder members of the golf club. Dr Fry was a
lieutenant in the Royal Army Medical Corps who served on the Western
Front in France. In recent years he has been recognised as an important First
170
World War poet. As well as treating the citizens of WGC, Dr Fry worked
as a pathologist, specialising in cancer at the Royal Marsden Hospital. He
died aged 46 in 1930 after suffering blood poisoning while carrying out a
post-mortem at the London Cancer Hospital. Dr Fry came to WGC after
his marriage to Dr Miall-Smith in 1921.
As reported in Chapter Ten, Dr Miall-Smith had been sacked from her
post in London for getting married. Drs Fry and Miall-Smith, together
with golf club secretary and captain Dr Hilton Fur-
nivall, formed the town’s first Health Council. Dr
Miall-Smith worked tirelessly with Dick Reiss’s wife
Celia to improve health standards in WGC before the
introduction of the National Health Service. Dr Mi-
all-Smith also brought up three children alone after
Dr Fry’s death, and in retirement worked in mater-
nity hospitals in Ghana and Zimbabwe. In later life
she lived in WGC’s Elizabeth House and died aged
102 in 1991.
Welwyn’s doctor duo
Andy Goode
Andy Goode, who defeated Andy Collie to win the WGC Golf Club
championship in 2008, is a multiple medal-winning badminton interna-
tional who represented England 120 times. Goode won Commonwealth
Games gold medals in 1986 and 1990, and at the European Champion-
ships in 1982. He was European junior singles champion in 1977. A dou-
bles specialist, his career includes several more silver and bronze-winning
performances at major championships. Goode also won several internation-
al open competitions and competed for Great Britain at the 1992 Olympic
Games in Barcelona. Now a member of Brocket Hall, Goode is married to
fellow badminton international Joanne Goode MBE, who won a bronze
medal in the mixed doubles at the Sydney Olympics in 2000.
Simon Hardy
Simon Hardy, a five-handicap member, helped
deliver England rugby union’s greatest triumph.
Hardy (left) was a key part of Sir Clive Wood-
ward’s coaching staff when England won the
World Cup in Sydney in 2003. A frequent mem-
ber of the WGC Golf Club scratch team over
171
many years, Hardy was an elite coach for the Rugby Football Union for
22 years. Regarded as one of the world’s leading throwing coaches, Hardy
has helped a cluster of top European and international teams and coached
around fifty international hookers on a one-to-one basis. He is now a free-
lance who remains a personal coach to the Saracens and England hooker
Jamie George. In 2022 the website RugbyPass described Hardy as “one of the
most influential rugby people you’ve never heard of ”.
Terry Densham
As a 16-year-old, Terry Densham was a tennis
player of such talent that he was selected to play
in an exhibition match against the three-times
Wimbledon champion Fred Perry. Densham’s
connection to Wimbledon greats does not end
there. His regular table tennis partner was Ann
Jones, an England international who switched
Densham (far right) with Faldo and to tennis and won the Wimbledon singles title
team at Torquay in 1977 in 1969. Densham played at Junior Wimble-
don himself, won several county championships in racket sports, owned
a squash club and as a marketing expert launched several national sport
initiatives. Densham, who joined WGC Golf Club in 1961 and is still a
keen competitor, also has a golfing claim to fame: in 1977, he travelled to
Torquay Golf Club to play with Nick Faldo in a pro-am in which Faldo won
his first professional cheque.
Phil Driver, Nigel Johnson,
Tony O’Hare, Billy Vandermotten
Phil Driver, a member for a long spell from the 1990s,
was a professional footballer who made 44 appearances
for Chelsea between 1980 and 1983. A former Luton
Town apprentice and professional, Driver (left) later
signed for Wimbledon before Chelsea manager Geoff
Hurst paid £20,000 for the winger. “My wages went
from £49 per week to £125,” said Driver. The website Sporting Heroes said:
“To say that Driver bore little resemblance to a traditional winger would
be an understatement; a lanky six-footer with a shock of blond hair and
the waif-like body of a supermodel, he appeared more Peter Crouch than
Peter Barnes, but in full flight he was a sight to behold.” Driver, who now
172
plays at Brocket Hall, had two spells at Wimbledon in a career blighted by
injuries. He was also a highly talented cricketer, making 17 appearances for
Hertfordshire in the Minor Counties Championship.
Driver’s close friend Nigel Johnson, another Welwyn member, was also a
professional at Luton. He moved on to play in Finland’s top divisions and
for leading non-League team Wealdstone where team-mates included Stuart
Pearce and Vinnie Jones. Johnson passed away in 2007. His son Will is a
seven-handicap member of the club.
Tony O’Hare, (left) a 16-handicapper who regularly
represents Welwyn in Badgers matches, was a professional
footballer at Barnet where he was a team-mate of Jimmy
Greaves, one of the world’s greatest strikers. A central de-
fender, O’Hare played for the club from 1978 to 1981.
Billy Vandermotten, one of the many Scottish golfers
at the club in the 1960s and 1970s, was a junior international who played
professionally for several clubs including Stirling Albion and Arbroath. Af-
ter moving south he managed WGC FC before his death aged 49 in 1979.
Dr Ian Gelling
In 2005, the King of Malaysia conferred on Ian Gelling the KMN (Of-
ficer of the Most Distinguished Order of the Defender of the Realm), one of
the country’s most prestigious awards, for his work as a scientist in the rub-
ber industry. Dr Gelling joined the UK laboratory of the Malaysian Rubber
Board in 1970 and, according to a citation for the award, one of his major
successes was in the field of chemical modification of natural rubber, which
led to the discovery of epoxidized natural rubber. Dr Gelling is the author
of more than 50 scientific papers.
Stephen Reiss OBE
A son of the original club captain, Stephen Reiss was an author and art
historian who for many years ran the Aldeburgh Festival with the composer
Benjamin Britten. The winner of one of WGC’s first junior competitions,
Reiss served as an intelligence officer in the Second World War and was
appointed as director of Fanfare for Europe, a celebration of the country’s
entry into the European Common Market. He was awarded the OBE for
his services to art in 1973. The author Ronald Blythe, who as a young man
worked with Reiss at Aldeburgh, wrote that Reiss was: “A rescuer, a rock.
There were moments when the Festival would have foundered had it not
173
been for him. Somehow tragic in himself, I thought, he knew how to bring
light into dark corners, to be strong when everyone and everything else went
to pieces.” Reiss died aged 81 in 1999.
Tony Southern
It is a remarkable fact that as WGC approached its centenary in No-
vember 2022, one member was older than the club itself. As this book was
delivered to its publisher, Tony Southern was due to celebrate his 101st
birthday. Tony joined in 1973 and remained a playing member into his 90s
before becoming a social member. General manager David Spring named
several other WGC members, now mostly social members, aged 90 and over
as Welwyn’s 100-year celebrations were in sight: Ron Mersh, Alan Smith
(still playing), Pete Peterson, Mike Cooper, John Withers and Ron Taylor.
Harold Pilgrim was approaching 90.
Professor Sally Bloomfield
One of the broadcast media’s favoured experts during the Covid-19 pan-
demic, Professor Sally Bloomfield, 13 times Scratch Cup winner at WGC
Golf Club, is a professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical
Diseases. Specialising in home hygiene research and education, Professor
Bloomfield, has developed strategies for dealing with emerging infectious
diseases. In 1995, Professor Bloomfield was awarded the Rudolf Schulke
Hygiene Prize for outstanding contribution in the field of Hygiene and Pre-
ventive Medicine.
Billy Byrne
Billy Byrne was one of the original build-
ing team of the BBC television programme
DIY SOS. The show was launched in 1999,
and by 2022 had completed 32 series.
Byrne, who plays off a handicap of 21 at
the club, was recruited to the show as an
electrician while working as a lighting en-
gineer in the film and television industry.
In the highly popular and often emotional
Byrne in royal company on DIY SOS DIY SOS, Byrne and the team transform
the homes and lives of families in need. In 2022, The Sun website said: “Billy
is the clown of the team. The show wouldn’t be the same without him.”
174
Jean Pickering MBE
International athlete Jean Pickering re-
mains the only British woman to have won
gold medals in both a track and field event at
the European Athletics Championships. She
was also an Olympic bronze medallist and
double Commonwealth Games bronze med-
allist who set British records in the women’s
Athletics star Jean Pickering
pentathlon and long jump. A keen member
of WGC Golf Club for many years, Jean died aged 83 in 2013. She was the
wife of the athletics coach and television commentator Ron Pickering, who
also played regularly at the club, and the mother of Shaun Pickering, who
competed in the Olympics and Commonwealth Games in the shot put.
Competing as Jean Desforges, her Olympic bronze came in the 4x100
metre relay in the 1952 Helsinki Games. Her European golds were achieved
in the sprint relay in Brussels in 1950 and in the long jump four years later
in Berne. In the Vancouver Commonwealth Games of 1954 Jean finished
third in the long jump and 80 metres hurdles. The first British woman to
break the 20-feet mark in the long jump, she won eight Amateur Athletic
Association championships.
Following the death of her husband in 1991, Jean established the Ron
Pickering Memorial Fund in support of grass-roots athletics. More than £2
million had been distributed by 2013 with recipients including Mo Farah,
Jessica Ennis, Christine Ohuruogu and Greg Rutherford.
Mair Quartley
Mair Quartley was a Wales international hockey player who for many
years combined her sporting life with membership of WGC Golf Club and
countless appearances for WGC Hockey Club. She later became a hockey
official. The hockey club could boast two international players as Mair’s
team-mate was Myra Clarke, who represented Scotland. Myra, who died in
2022, was the wife of Welwyn member Simon Hardy (see p171).
Chris Ryan MBE
A hugely talented two-handicap golfer at WGC, Chris Ryan suffered a
spinal-cord injury while a passenger in a car accident in 2008 and, as a
wheelchair rugby player, went on to become one of Great Britain’s fore-
most Paralympians. Ryan’s career in wheelchair rugby – sometimes referred
175
Chris Ryan to as murderball because of high-tempo collisions –
peaked in 2020 when he captained Team GB side to
gold at the 2020 Tokyo Paralympic Games. Ryan was
named GB captain in 2015 and quickly led his team
to the first of three successive European Champion-
ships. Ryan, who had enrolled at the Sports Academy
for Golf in Colchester before his accident, was ap-
pointed an MBE by Prince William at Buckingham
Palace in 2022, receiving the award for services to
wheelchair rugby.
George Sweeney
Appearing on stage and screen over
several decades, George Sweeney has
worked with some of the world’s most
famous actors, including Roger Moore
with whom he appeared in the 1981
James Bond movie For Your Eyes Only.
Sweeney pilots Roger Moore in the 1981 Bond A social member of WGC Golf Club
movie For Your Eyes Only
for many years, Sweeney played the
character of Speed in the classic comedy Citizen Smith, written by John Sul-
livan and starring Robert Lindsay. His numerous credits include Rumpole of
the Bailey, The Sweeney, Remington Steele, Jack the Ripper, Minder, The Bill,
Casualty and EastEnders. Sweeney was also a Royal Shakespeare Company
cast member in the highly acclaimed world tour of Peter Brook’s classic pro-
duction of A Midsummer Night’s Dream in the early 1970s. Sweeney lives in
Welwyn Village with his wife Lesley.
Roger Wallhead (centre) heads for Russia with R.C. Wallhead MP
his Labour Party delegation It is a fair bet that only one member
of WGC Golf Club met Lenin. Richard
Wallhead was an Independent Labour
MP who lived in WGC until his death
in the town in 1934. He became MP
for Merthyr in the General Election of
1922, and two years earlier had been
part of a Labour Party delegation to
visit post-revolution Russia. During the
176
trip he had discussions with Vladimir Lenin, leader of the Marxist Bol-
shevik coup of 1917 and founding head of the Soviet Russia government.
Wallhead made a second visit to Russia in 1925. Wallhead was a keen con-
tributor to WGC Golf Club’s early ‘Smoking Concerts’ in which members
took to the stage. Unlike many of the club’s early members who served in
the armed forces, he was an opponent of the First World War and was de-
tained in 1917 under the Defence of the Realm Act.
Chris Wilkinson OBE RA
Chris Wilkinson was a world-renowned architect
who twice won the Stirling Prize, the UK’s most
prestigious award for architecture. Wilkinson,
who died aged 76 in December 2021, was the son
of Tony and Norma Wilkinson, also WGC Golf
Club members who lived in Mannicotts. Norma,
lady captain three times, was one of the club’s great
characters, a lover of a G&T who would not have
looked out of place in an Agatha Christie play.
When Chris Wilkinson died, his obituary in The
Chris Wilkinson
Times described him as a “gentle and thoughtful
man who gave the impression that drawing was preferable to speaking”.
Wilkinson worked for architectural giants Norman Foster and Richard Rog-
ers before setting up his own practice which later became WilkinsonEyre.
He had played a large part in the design of Rogers’s Grade 1-listed Lloyd’s
building in the City of London.
His conversion of the steelworks in Rotherham into an adventure science
centre beat the Eden Project in Cornwall to the Stirling Prize in 2001. “The
following year,” said The Times, “Wilkinson confirmed his status as archi-
tecture’s hottest property by winning the Stirling Prize again.” Wilkinson’s
later projects included Guangzhou International Finance Centre in South-
ern China, at nearly 440 metres the tallest building designed by a British
architect when it was completed in 2010.
Of all his projects, Wilkinson said he was most proud of the Maggie’s
Centre, a hospice near the Churchill Hospital in Oxford. The modernist
tree house is elevated above the ground around a cluster of trees, giving
the sense of being embraced by nature. “Chris was just a terrific person in
every sense, and everyone enjoyed his company,” said his WGC Golf Club
contemporary Chris Allen.
177
Norman Wiggins
Twelve-handicap member Norman Wiggins has been
a professional musician since leaving school. Largely a
trumpet player and singer, his credits include backing
Motown giant Marvin Gaye in his final tour of the UK.
He also played trumpet in the studio and on a South
American tour for ‘Disco Queen’ Donna Summer,
whose worldwide hits include I Feel Love and Love to
Norman Wiggins Love You Baby. Wiggins began his career as a classical
musician, playing with the BBC Radio Orchestra. He was a trumpet player
with Big Band aristocrats the Glenn Miller Orchestra and played swing and
jazz with the Pasadena Roof Orchestra. As a member of The UK Players,
Wiggins appeared on two 1980s Gold Discs, the compilation albums Disco
Daze/Disco Nites and Disco Erotica. He was also a member of Freefall Jazz
and is part of the reggae/ska band Rocksteady Drop. Wiggins also collabo-
rated with Eddy Grant, known for Electric Avenue and I Don’t Wanna Dance.
Wiggins combined life as a musician in the 1980s with an international
sports career. A black belt fourth dan, Wiggins spent seven years as a mem-
ber of the GB karate squad.
Roy Warman
Chairman of WGC Golf Club from 2009 to
2021, Roy Warman was a founding executive
of the world-famous media agency Saatchi &
Saatchi, who revolutionised political marketing
in 1970s. While working for the Conservative
Party, the agency’s ‘Labour Isn’t Working’ cam-
paign is widely heralded as a significant factor in
Saatchi man Roy Warman in a the 1979 General Election in which Margaret
Daily Telegraph photo Thatcher became Prime Minister. Roy Warman
was joint chief operating officer of Saatchi & Saatchi plc and joint CEO of
Saatchi & Saatchi Communications Ltd.
178
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Today and Tomorrow
On the tee….a fourball sets off on WGC’s notoriously difficult first hole
David Spring, Welwyn Garden City Golf Club’s general manager, estimates
that 35,000 rounds of golf are played on the course each year. That is an
average of 100 golfers a day emerging from the changing rooms, dropping
into club professional Shaun Collins’s shop and walking the slight slope
towards the first tee.
A sign adjacent to the practice nets at the bottom
of the slope carries a message. ‘Keep Smiling,’ it de-
clares. The plaque adds that the nets were donated
by the 2016 captain Tony Smith in memory of Roy
Scadden. Thereby hangs a tale.
Scadden and Smith were fellow members, close friends, and occasional
colleagues in the plumbing business. “In 2009, I was at Ikea in Tottenham
179
with Roy,” said Smith. “When we returned to my van it had been stripped
of every piece of my equipment which was worth £10,000, £1,000 in cash,
my passport and the will of my father who had recently passed away. I was
livid. As we drove back, Roy broke the silence. ‘It’s just terrible,’ he said.
‘They took my lunchbox, too!’ That ended any self-pity and suddenly we
were laughing again. It was typical Roy.”
Smith’s anecdote provides the background to the ‘Keep Smiling’ senti-
ment, an apt one both for the eminently frustrating game of golf and the
immediate challenge of Welwyn’s highly demanding 465-yard, par-four first
hole – a par-five for the ladies and, realistically, for most men, too.
Shaun Collins’s professional tip for the opening drive is that the ideal line
is the left-hand edge of the bunker. Easy for him to say; some tweak it left,
to be stymied by the giant oak tree standing tall at the gap; others cut it into
the trees on the right, where the aroma of sizzling bacon often drifts from
Sue and John Whitehead’s wooden halfway hut. The ever-smiling couple
have kept members magnificently fed and watered for nearly two decades.
The challenge does not end at the first. The course yardage of 6,100 from
the back tees is not particularly long, but every player’s scorecard is an ex-
amination paper posing 18 interesting questions.
In October 2022, Reis Suart,
the club’s latest England interna-
tional, was in Collins’s pro shop
with 15-year-old junior Harry
Cox, who the previous day had
fired a two-under 68 to secure
the final two of an unprecedent-
ed four Herts County junior ti-
tles from under-18 downwards.
Even Nick Faldo did not do
that. The pair’s presence under-
lined the club’s reputation for
Reis Suart and Harry Cox with his county trophies producing elite players.
Suart, planning to turn professional in early 2023, said: “An amazing
number of good players have come from Welwyn over many years, and I
believe it’s because the course is genuinely tough. The greens are small with
subtle slopes, the par-threes aren’t easy, and it’s tight. It makes scoring very
difficult and means you must play well, or the shots will run away. As a
young player it forces you to develop a disciplined game.”
180
As earlier chapters highlight, the Welwyn acres analysed by Suart have
undergone continual change over 100 years, posing different challenges for
each generation. A local rule once allowed players to carry a scythe to help
find their ball amid the unkempt grass. On occasions now the course ap-
pears to have been snipped to perfection by a team of hairdressers.
Course manager Brett Cox is the man tasked with keeping Welwyn in the
best possible condition, having led an outstanding greens team for more
than 20 years. The job is a complex one and Cox’s in-tray is much like the
grass – it never stops growing.
In 2022, the course endured one of the UK’s longest droughts. The fair-
ways turned a lighter shade of brown as temperatures soared, reaching an
unprecedented 40 degrees Centigrade (104 degrees Fahrenheit) in some
parts of the country. The heatwave confirmed that with climate change
comes unusual weather patterns and regular droughts.
Water – or lack of it – is a major problem, which is why during the win-
ter of 2013–2014, under the chairmanship of Roy Warman, WGC built
a 10,000 cubic metre reservoir between the 13th and 14th holes. It has
proved a godsend during successive hot and dry summers and will continue
to provide an uninterrupted supply of water in all but the most extreme
conditions.
A drone camera captures the golf course reservoir which has been an excellent investment
181
Cox said: “Ensuring an uninterrupted supply of water is essential in main-
taining any grass surface, but it is also essential for all golf clubs to under-
stand that water is becoming an increasingly scarce resource and one that
has to be used as efficiently and as sparingly as possible.”
Many will not be aware that a golf course needs the right kind of water,
too. The club installed an acid injector about 15 years ago to counter a pH
problem with the water the club accesses from a bore hole.
“The water from the bore hole is far too alkaline,” said Cox. “A pH of
seven is neutral, but ours was over eight, which had serious consequences.
Ideally, it should be around seven.
“It doesn’t matter if water has a high alkaline or acid content,” he added.
“In both cases it means the nutrients in the soil get locked up and can’t be
used. The pH in the water must be right to activate the nutrients which are
there in the ground.”
Cox and his team carry out a monthly programme of aeration as too
much water and fertiliser can lead to thatch (rotting vegetation below the
surface). “This has become arguably the most important part of mainte-
nance policy,” said Cox. “Our drive is to provide firm, fast, deeper rooting,
all-year-round putting surfaces.”
A more biological greens
maintenance regime has paid
rich dividends. The staff now
regularly spray the greens with
biological ‘brews’ mixed on-site
and designed to deal with issues
that can develop within the root
zone. Such treatments have en-
abled the club to reduce signifi-
cantly its use of costly chemical
fertilisers and fungicides, which
in turn has also been beneficial
to the environment.
Cox’s decision to raise the
height of the cut on both greens
and fairways has also paid divi-
dends. As part of this process the
greens are also rolled on a regular
Colour contrasts on the fourth hole during the 2022 drought basis to maintain speed levels.
182
“In 2021, we decided to start cutting the greens at four millimetres in-
stead of three and we have seen big improvements. Leaving more leaf on the
surface encouraged the roots to go further down, which means we can af-
ford to use less water, and this creates the right environment for the hardier
bent grasses we are trying to encourage. It also means the plant is under less
stress and is therefore less susceptible to disease.
“The decision to raise the cut on the fairways has produced similar re-
sults,” he added. “We don’t have fairway watering so the more grass there is
on the surface the less likely it is to dry up. Raising the cut also allows golfers
to sweep the ball off the surface which results in less divot damage.”
The plan is to continue investment in the course and machinery. As the
bunker improvement programme reaches completion, work has already be-
gun on the next pressing requirement: a tee improvement programme. This
ideally needs to be accelerated to create flatter, freer-draining tees.
A recent entry into Cox’s in-tray is ash dieback, a highly destructive dis-
ease affecting ash trees of which there are 300 on Welwyn’s land. For the
record, the disease, which is now in most parts of the UK, is caused by a
fungus of Asian origin called Hymenoscyphus fraxineus.
“Many of our ash trees are likely to succumb and may have to be re-
moved,” said Cox. “We are currently following national guidelines and have
employed a wait-and-see policy. Anecdotal evidence suggests that around
80 per cent of the trees that develop ash dieback will be lost, but this might
change if they start to develop natural immunities. There is some evidence
this is already happening in some more mature trees, although we can see
from our own trees this is not happening across the board.”
The ash dieback issue is additional to the normal tree management – deal-
ing with dead or dying trees and tree thinning. Cox added: “Our paths are
something else we’d like to improve. They get washed out whenever we have
heavy rain. Repairs are time-consuming and in an ideal world we would
switch to synthetic surfaces or tarmac which require less maintenance and
are aesthetically more attractive. However, both are much more expensive,
which must be a consideration, too.”
Confirmation that ash dieback had reached WGC raised the prospect of
additional cost just as the club was emerging in 2022 from two years of
Covid-19 interruption.
Just as it was for the rest of the population, the pandemic was a daily jour-
ney into the unknown for the club’s hierarchy. David Spring and incum-
bent chairman Roy Warman were in constant conversation, juggling with
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fast-changing Government rules. Spring said: “Our priority was, of course,
the health of our members and staff. Economically we had no idea where
we were going, and we were extremely worried about how many members
we could lose because of people’s financial issues. Rules changed constantly
regarding the course and the clubhouse.”
Warman expanded on leading the club during an extraordinary time.
“There was no history to fall back on,” he said. “This was an unprecedented
situation, so making forecasts was impossible. We took steps like furlough-
ing staff under the Government scheme and that saved about £40,000, but
basically all our revenue streams dried up. The Covid pandemic began at
renewal time, so we had no idea how it would affect membership numbers.
“Thankfully, in terms of the health of members, we came out of it very
well because the outcomes were unknown. With the demographic of our
club, it was hugely concerning. I was on the phone to David Spring at 8.30
in the morning and our last conversation would be at 11.30 at night as the
Government continually changed policy. Of course, during lockdown we
had to close the course completely. We compensated members but many
sent emails saying they wished to support the club and pay the full amount.
“We also set up a hardship committee to help people who were unable
to pay monthly direct debits. One member donated the equivalent of three
membership fees to help members in financial trouble. Those we helped
paid the money back and the donating member agreed the money could
later be put into the junior section fund.”
At certain points Government rules dictated no socialising could take
place inside the clubhouse, but drinks could be served by mask-wearing staff
on the terrace. Winter saw the bizarre sight of members wrapped in over-
coats shivering with a pint in hand. Club captain John Boland did his best
to keep spirits high as socially deprived members chatted through chattering
teeth. But Boland’s year was virtually written off by the pandemic and the
decision to grant him a second term was not a difficult one. Social normality
had returned when Boland handed over to Frank Casey in November 2021.
What no one foresaw at the start of the pandemic was that it would lead
to an unprecedented boom in golf. Spring said: “Golf was one of the first
sports to return. Under England Golf guidance we had to introduce a tee-
time booking system as we were required to have a record of who was at the
club. There was hardly a spare slot, bearing in mind we were restricted to
two-balls. We eventually saw an increase in membership, particularly in the
intermediate category, and when visitors were permitted again green fees
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went through the roof. It’s pleasing that many who joined have stayed and
we emerged from the pandemic in financially better shape than we could
have hoped.”
Warman added: “There was no football, rugby or cricket so we were the
only sport in town. Many people rediscovered golf and thankfully stayed.”
The post-Covid world brought change. Former Saatchi executive Warman
stepped down after 12 years’ service, and Simon Wombwell, co-opted as a
director in the summer, was voted in as chairman following the 2021 AGM.
As this book demonstrates, a golf club never stops evolving and Wom-
bwell and his Board have a formidable to-do list. As the club entered its
centenary year the Board comprised Wombwell, Chris Pomroy (finance),
Colin Callander (course), Barry Thomas (establishment), Barry Taylor (golf
revenue), John Horsley (captain) and Andy Collie (vice-captain).
Wombwell, a retired finance industry executive, said: “In the short term
the club and its members are looking forward to a fun and exciting cente-
nary year. The centenary committee has organised an extensive number of
events to ensure the 100-year milestone is celebrated in appropriate style.
“The club is also actively taking steps to make sure that members can en-
joy the next 100 years of golf. While the club is in a good financial position,
and the condition of our course is the envy of other clubs, it is important
that we plan for the next generation of golfers.
“Members were asked to approve a revision of our Articles and Rules.
This followed an independent review of our corporate governance and ex-
tensive consultation with members. The review means that the management
structure, decision-making responsibility and accountability is clear going
forward. It also reflects that we have the privilege of being a club owned by
its members and encourages us all to participate in its management.”
It is an irony that the distance members can hit the ball on the practice
area has been restricted by a house built in the garden of a property original-
ly owned by the club’s first captain, Dick Reiss. “We are currently looking
at using modern technology to improve practice facilities by introducing a
driving pod and indoor swing studio,” said Wombwell.
Wombwell added that the biggest challenge facing the club during an
uncertain economic climate was the proposed redevelopment of the club-
house. He said: “Plans are well underway for a proposal to be placed before
members, but the funding required to achieve this, and the associated risk,
will need careful consideration, but we must ensure members have appro-
priate facilities going forward.
185
Kevin Hodges (second left) with fellow former captains (l to r) Peter Woodrow, Martin Timpson and Richard
Roberts
“It’s a pleasure and honour to be chairman. Ultimately the club reflects its
membership and ours are passionate and enthusiastic about their golf, the
management of the club and are committed to its future. In addition, they
are great fun to play golf with! Our greatest achievement will be when, in
another 100 years, members look back and reflect positively on our stew-
ardship of the club.”
To echo Wombwell’s sentiments, WGC Golf Club’s centenary year is a
perfect time to consider those who launched the club and the extraordinary
number of people who have given their time to keep it out of the rough on
its journey from 1923 to 2023.
Walter Hagen’s famous advice would be apt for centenary year: “You’re
only here for a short visit. Don’t hurry, don’t worry and be sure to smell
the roses along the way.” We can add to that Roy Scadden’s advice to ‘Keep
Smiling’.
Kevin Hodges, a past captain and chairman, summarised: “The thing I
love about WGC Golf Club is that it doesn’t matter whether you’re a mul-
ti-millionaire in a Rolls-Royce or financially struggling in an old banger, as
soon as you walk through the door of this golf club no one cares. Everyone
is equal.”
Words that would be music to the ears of Dick Reiss, the club’s extraordi-
nary founding father, and his fellow friends and members of 100 years ago.
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CHAPTER NINETEEN
Anatomy of the Club
The Captains
Centenary captains John Horsley and Marlene Duke
The Board
2022 Board members John Horsley (top) with (left) Frank Casey, Colin Callander, Barry Thomas
and (right) Simon Wombwell (chairman) Chris Pomroy and Andy Collie. Right: Barry Taylor
187
Management Team
David Spring, general manager, with Kelly Cooke (centre) and Lynne Woolman
The Bar
House manager Eve Drake (centre) with assistant Angela Jones (left) and Megan Jones.
Right: Jae Dorken and Tom Sainter.
The Chefs
Debbie Keenan, head chef, and Jon Green
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The Greenkeepers
Brett Cox (centre), course manager, with (left) Gary Hyde and Alfie Dunning
and (right) John Williams and Neil Pestle
Maintenance and Gardening
Maintenance man Bill McGarry with wife Sylvia who took over gardening duties from
volunteer David Griffiths in 2022
Halfway House
John and Sue Whitehead, halfway house hosts for almost two decades
189
The Professionals
Head professional Shaun Collins with (left) Curtis Whitelegg and Harry Cater
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CHAPTER TWENTY
Roll of Honour
Sir Nick Faldo MBE
Major Championships 1981
PGA Champion
1987
Open Champion 1982
Haig Tournament Champion
1989
Masters 1983
1990 French Open
Masters Martini International
Open Champion Car Care Plan International
1992 Lawrence Batley International
Open Champion Swiss Open
1996
Masters 1984
Sea Pines Heritage Classic (USA)
Other Professional Wins
1977 Car Care Plan International
1987
Skol Lager Individual
1976 Spanish Open
1988
PGA Champion
1979 French Open
Volvo Masters
ICL Tournament (SA)
1980 1989
PGA Champion
PGA Champion British Masters
French Open
World Matchplay Champion
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1990 Amateur
Asian Classic 1973
1991 John O’Gaunt Junior Open
Irish Open 1974
1992 WGC GC Champion
Irish Open 1975
Scandinavian Masters Champion
European Open English Amateur Champion
World Matchplay Champion County Champion of Champions
Johnnie Walker World Champion
British Youth Champion
1993 Herts County Champion
Johnnie Walker Asian Classic
Berkshire Trophy
Irish Open Herts Junior Champion
1994
Scrutton Jug
Belgium Open WGC GC Champion
Nedbank Million Dollar Challenge Royston Junior Open
1995 South African GU
Doral Ryder Open (US) Special Strokeplay Champion
King George V Coronation Cup
1997
Nissan Open 1976
King George IV Trophy
Team Appearances
Ryder Cup 1977, 79, 81, 83, 85, Amateur International Appearances
87, 89, 91, 93, 95, 97. 1974
Captain – 2008 England Boys
World Cup 1977, 91 1975
Double Diamond 1977 GB Commonwealth Tournament
Hennessy Cup 1978, 80, 82, 84
Dunhill Cup 1985, 86, 87, England Youth
England (Home International)
88, 91, 93
Nissan Cup 1986 British Youth
Kirin Cup 1987
Asahi Glass 4 Tours 1990
European team 2005 Royal Trophy
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Tom Lewis
Professional wins 2011
Open Championship Silver Medal
2011
Portugal Masters St Andrews Links Trophy
Henry Cotton Rookie of the Year
Amateur teams
2018 2008 & 2009
Portugal Masters Won Jacques Léglise Trophy
Bridgestone Challenge (GB & Ireland)
2019 2010
Korn Ferry Tour Champion Won European Amateur
Team Championship (England)
Amateur wins Eisenhower Trophy England)
2009 St Andrews Trophy (GB & Ireland)
Carris Trophy, British Boys’ 2011
Champion Walker Cup won (GB & Ireland)
Other Welwyn Achievers
D.C. Allen claimed the ladies’ title. In 1975 he
D.C. ‘Chris’ Allen holds the record reached the semi-final of the Eng-
for winning the Club Champion- lish Amateur and would have played
ship on ten occasions between 1962 Nick Faldo in an all-WGC final had
and 1978. He can also lay claim to he not lost at that stage.
a series of firsts. He was the first
WGC member to win the Herts W. Bates
Boys’ Championship in 1960 and Winner of the Club Championship
the first to win the Herts men’s ti- in 1952 and again two years later.
tle in 1966 before repeating that
success eleven years later. His other Sally Bloomfield
victories include the West of Eng- Won the Ladies’ Scratch Cup 13
land Match Play Championship in times between 1977 and 1995. That
1964 and the 1965 Evening News puts her second only to Peggy Cun-
Tournament when he won the men’s neen in the number of victories ac-
prize and clubmate Peggy Cunneen cumulated in that event.
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Sue Burness qualified for a place in The Senior
Won the WGC Ladies’ Scratch Cup Open at Sunningdale.
twice in succession in 1974 and 1975.
Susan Clarke
Nicola Callander Susan won the Herts Girls’ title five
First made a name for herself at the times in succession between 1956
age of 12 and 13 by winning the De and 1960. In 1959 she was third in
Paula Cup County title in succession the British Girls’ Championship and
in 2008 and 2009 and becoming a was selected to represent England at
regular in the Herts Girls’ and Wom- girls’ level before claiming the big-
en’s team. In 2012 she was third in gest title of her career by winning
the Scottish Open Under-16 Stroke- the 1960 British Girls’ Champion-
play Championship at Strathmore ship at Kilmarnock (Barassie). That
before becoming the second young- led to her being capped by England.
est winner of the Scottish Open Un- Won the WGC Ladies’ Scratch Cup
der-21 Championship when she beat four times between 1960 and 1964
current LPGA and LET professional before moving north with her hus-
Gemma Dryburgh into second place band. Susan was later killed in a
over the Lansdowne course at Blair- road accident while cycling.
gowrie. That victory led to appear-
ances for Scotland in both the Girls’ John Coe
Home Internationals and the Euro- John Coe won the Herts Boys’
pean Girls’ Team Championship. Championship in 1984.
Won the WGC Ladies’ Scratch Cup
in 2016. Andy Collie
Collie won his sixth WGC men’s
Peter Cherry Club Championship in 2022 to
Cherry won the WGC men’s Club move to within four victories of
Championship three times in suc- Chris Allen’s record haul of ten ti-
cession between 1984 and 1986 tles. Collie’s run started in 2000
and claimed both the Herts Men’s and includes wins in 2005, 2007,
and Colts’ titles in 1986 before 2009, and 2015. When he added
joining the pro ranks and enjoy- the 2022 Captain’s Prize to his name
ing stints as Head Professional at Andy joined an elite group com-
Royal Mid-Surrey, Harpenden and prising Chris Allen (1977), Eddie
Ashridge Golf Clubs during which Green (1995) and James Ruebotham
he was a regular winner of local and (2001) to win both it and the Club
regional PGA events. In 2021 Peter Championship in the same year.
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Scratch Team of 2000: (l to r) Anthony Hodgson, Andy Dale, Tom Piggott, Don Winning, Eddie Green,
Andy Wild, Keith Hargreaves (sponsor), John Stapleton (club captain), John Moorhouse, Peter Millar
(manager), Marvin Joyce, Edward Hare, Andy Collie, Martin Timpson, James Ruebotham
Andy’s name is on the competition times in 2003, 2013, 2016, 2017
boards 54 times. He achieved his and 2018. Since joining WGC in
first victory as a 16-year-old in 1988 2015 she has won the Women’s
and his latest in the 2022 Mixed- Scratch Cup three times, in 2017,
Scratch Salver. 2018 and 2019 and the new Wom-
en’s Club Championship (played
Kelly Cooke (nee Hutcherson) in tandem with the Women’s Reiss
Cooke is a two-time winner of the Trophy) in each of the three years it
Herts Women’s Championship. She has been contested.
won for the first time at West Herts
in 2002 and the second 20 years later Jonny Coomber
at Hadley Wood in 2022. A former Won the Club Championship four
professional, Kelly has also won the times in five years between 1955
Herts Women’s Scratch Aggregate and 1959.
Cup three times in 1999, 2003 and
2021, the Herts Women’s Champi- Harry Cox
on of Champions title in 2019 and In 2022 Harry created history when
The Mary Oliver Broach (awarded he became the first player ever to
to the leading Herts points earner at complete the clean sweep by win-
Women’s County Match Week) five ning the four main Scratch titles at
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the Herts Boys’ Championship at Helen Emms
East Herts (U18 and (U16) and the Won Ladies’ Scratch Cup in three
Herts Boys’ U16 Championship at consecutive years between 1996 and
WGC (U16 and (U15). Headed the 1998.
Herts Boys’ Order of Merit in 2021.
Ian Fordyce
Chris Crane Winner of the 1971 Herts Boys’
Won the 2001 Herts Boys’ Champi- Championship at Brookmans Park.
onship at South Herts and also the
Malcolm Reid Trophy awarded to Gillian Goodchild
the leading U16 competitor in the Won the Ladies’ Scratch Cup in
same field. 2003 and repeated that success the
following year.
Peggy Cunneen
Margaret “Peggy” Cunneen domi- Eddie Green
nates the Ladies’ Scratch Cup hon- The winner of the Club Champi-
ours board at WGC having won the onship on four occasions in 1979,
trophy 15 times during a 31-year 1982, 1983 and 1995. Holds the re-
spell between 1947 and 1978. She cord for the longest hole-in-one ever
was also crowned as County Ladies’ recorded at WGC (on the 311-yard
champion in 1965 and won the 16th in 1989).
prestigious Evening News Champi-
onship at Camberley Heath. Dave Hancock
Won the WGC Club Championship
Andy Dale in successive years in 1960 and ’61.
Won the WGC Club Championship
in two occasions in 1988 and 1992 Paul Hargreaves
and was the club’s Junior champion Won the Malcolm Reid Trophy
in 1986 and 1988. Became the sev- awarded to the leading U16 player
enth WGC member to win the Herts at the Herts Boys’ Championship at
Boys’ Championship in 1989. Berkhamsted in 1987 and a second
county title two years later in the Boys’
Julie Dyke Junior Challenge Trophy. Also won the
Julie is a five-time winner of the La- WGC Junior Championship in 1989.
dies’ Scratch Cup having lifted the
trophy in 2005, 2006, 2008, 2010 Marvin Joyce
and 2011. She also won the Herts Won the Club Championship in
De Paula Trophy in 2003. 1990, 1991 and 1993.
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Bryan Lewis Mary Oliver
Winner of the 1978 Herts Boys’ Mary won the WGC Scratch Cup
Championship at South Herts before three times in a row in 1950-1952
turning professional. Played on the and claimed the Herts Women’s title
European Tour and won the Dubai in 1951 before moving to Berkham-
and Oman Opens. Lewis was also sted and claiming a further eight
runner-up in the English and Scottish women’s county titles. She was
Assistants’ Championships. The father made an honorary member of the
of Tom Lewis, Bryan is now a highly Herts County Ladies’ Golf Associa-
respected golf coach at the Gosling tion in 1961.
Sports Park Golf Range in WGC.
Tom Piggott
Bobby Mitchell Tom became the first WGC mem-
Mitchell is one of four WGC mem- ber to win the annual Commemo-
bers to have won both the Herts ration Jug when he claimed the title
Boys’ and Men’s Championships in 2000 after finishing runner-up in
(the others are Chris Allen, Nick the same event the previous year. He
Faldo and Reis Suart). Won the qualified for those events by winning
former at Harpenden in 1980 and the Club Championship in 1998
Porters Park the following year and 1999 and was also to claim a
and the latter at Old Fold Manor third and fourth title in 2006 and
in 1981. Turned pro in 1981, fin- 2009. Won the WGC Junior Cham-
ishing third at the European Tour pionship in 1998 and 1999.
Qualifying School and competed
on the European Tour and Safari Trevor Powell
Tours from 1982 to 1986. Became Trevor Powell was one of the club
Head Professional at Knebworth prodigies coached by Ian Connelly in
in 1990 before taking on the same the era of Nick Faldo, Bobby Mitch-
role at South Herts in 1994. Three- ell and Bryan Lewis. He gained a Eu-
times Herts County Professional ropean Tour Card and finished 31st
Champion. in the 1981 Open Championship at
Royal St George’s won by Bill Rogers.
Ricky Moggridge Powell’s score of 291 matched Greg
Took up the game after joining the Norman and was two shots superior
Greens staff at WGC and a few years to Severiano Ballesteros’s final total.
later claimed the men’s Club Cham- Tom Watson, Jack Nicklaus and Ar-
pionship in 2016 and again the fol- nold Palmer were in the group one
lowing year. shot better than Powell.
197
James Ruebotham in South Africa when she was
James Ruebotham won the Herts named in the Southern Transvaal
Boys’ Championship in 2000 and Provincial squad in 1998 and the
the following year added the Herts following year she won the B-Divi-
Colts’ Championship and the WGC sion Strokeplay title at the SA Am-
Club Championship to his name. ateur. She represented South Africa
The year after turning professional in a match against The Netherlands
he beat Chris Hanson after an eight- in 2001 before turning profession-
hole play-off at the 2006 GMS Clas- al in 2003 and competing on the
sic at Mollington Grange to secure Nedbank Tour until 2007. After re-
his sole victory on the PGA Euro- gaining her amateur status in 2011
Pro Tour. Has won seven times on she joined WGC and has since
the Jamega Tour and claimed 18 claimed a series of trophies includ-
victories at local and regional PGA ing Ladies’ Scratch Cup in 2014,
events. In 2004 set four course re- 2015 and 2022. At county level she
cords in the space of five days at has also won the Anne Pyke Tro-
WGC (63), Ealing (62), Brocket phy in 2012 and 2022 and the Pam
Hall Melbourne course (66) and Lane Salver twice as an individual
Stoke Rochford (63). in 2014 and 2016 and alongside
Kelly Cooke and wife Alison Strous
Jim Sadler in 2022.
The men’s Club Champion on three
occasions in 1959, 1964 and 1965. Reis Suart
Reis capped a couple of fine years
Valerie Saville when he was picked for the Eng-
The winner of the Ladies’ Scratch land side that won the 2022 Junior
Cup in both 2000 and 2001. Home Internationals at Downfield
Golf Club in Dundee. He earned
Greg Schmidt his place after a string of excellent
South African Schmidt was only a performances including wins in the
member at WGC for five years in 2020 Herts Boys’ Championship
the 1980s but during that time won and the 2021 Herts Men’s Cham-
the Club Championship in 2003 pionship. He also won the WGC
and 2004 and the Herts men’s Or- Club Championship in both 2018
der of Merit in 2006. and 2019 and in 2021 followed in
the footsteps of Tom Piggott by be-
Esther Strous coming just the second WGC player
Esther first made the news at home to win the Commemoration Jug.
198