Hard Times For Essex Club Man

In recession-hit Essex, even the Golf Club can be strapped for cash. Kris Canon reports

The greens are pristine, the clubhouse is an 18th century pile, and the bar is classic solid oak with leather-covered club chairs for sipping a well-deserved beverage at the nineteenth hole (G&T for me, please, Nigel).

But the porcelain in the Gents’ is looking distinctively off-white; in the locker room half the locks are broken and many of the lockers are dented. In the heart of rural Essex, surrounded by detached houses and wealthy owners, Wanstead Golf Club is struggling to stay solvent.

‘I’ve been here a while now and I’ve seen the club change dramatically and not necessarily for the better,’ says Club Pro Dave Hawkins. Recession is responsible for some of these problems, but Dave does not see it all that way:  ‘The committee doesn’t do enough to attract new members, young and old. The junior section in particular is struggling due to a lack of innovative thinking.’

To their credit, though, the Club’s managers have come up with a scheme for £200-a-year student membership, compared to the full adult annual rate of £1300. But even with this offer and round-the-clock catering (a big plus in today’s golfing culture), the Club is currently struggling to find enough new members.

And it’s more than an Essex-East London thing. Times are also tough on the other side of town. I’ve previously been a member of Datchet Golf Club in Berkshire, near Windsor. As a member I found myself sitting back and watching it fall in the same direction as Wanstead – down. Again, new blood – or the lack of it – is crucial. When I joined in 2003 there was only one other junior member. After a recruitment drive this figure soared to 40; but then the old fogies put a cap on it, and the Club lost a golden opportunity to secure its future for many years to come.

East-West, the story is largely the same: Golf Clubs, the absolute image of Southern prosperity, have been hit into the rough; and the greens are no grassier on the other side.

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