Honorary memberships at golf clubs can be a wonderful thing, especially when they are awarded to people who have brought distinction to their club, either through their golf and/or by playing a key role in the running of club affairs.
Along much the same lines, an honour will sometimes be bestowed on a visiting player who impresses the members at a tournament they have hosted. In the case of the latter, Monty Scowsill would be a fine example.
He lost to Laird Shepherd at the 38th hole in the final of last year’s Amateur Championship at Nairn, having been 8-up after the first 17 holes. Yet however hideous he must have been feeling at the game’s end, he stayed put to accept an invitation to meet the members for a drink in the bar.
In tennis, honorary memberships of the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club are given to the men’s and women’s winners at Wimbledon. In 1981, John McEnroe proved the exception when he ran up a series of fines on his way to collecting the trophy. On that occasion, the committee said they would leave the door open for him to become an honorary member at a later date – something which happened two years later when he won without anything in the way of a major hoo-ha.
Golf clubs in the UK and beyond are seldom averse to handing out honorary memberships to members of the Royal Family. In 2015, shortly after the Royal and Ancient had agreed to take women, honorary memberships were awarded to each of the following: The Princess Royal, Dame Laura Davies, Renee Powell, Belle Robertson, Lally Segard, Annika Sörenstam and Louise Suggs.
All but one had been a golf devotee all her days, with the odd one out Anne, the Princess Royal. Her Royal Highness accepted the honour with dignity, and never mind that her feelings about our royal and ancient game had made quite an impact on social media when she was reported saying: “I’ve always seen golf as an arduous way to go for a walk. I would sooner take the dogs out.” (Such material was hurriedly removed from the internet in the wake of the honorary-membership announcement.)
An ancient history of Sunningdale contains a wonderful story as to why they decided that a Mr Owens, general manager of the London and South Western Railway, should become their first honorary member in the early 1900s.
“In those days,” said the writer, “a major problem for members was transport. The motor car was in its infancy and members of the golf clubs springing up around London relied on the railway, and the horse drawn cab. The trouble for Sunningdale members was that the London and South Western Railway timetable made no provision for the train to halt at Sunningdale and it steamed right through to Ascot.”
No amount of pleading with the railway’s timetable superintendent got the members anywhere, but no sooner had that first honorary member been installed than all trains stopped at Sunningdale. Just imagine what a political furore that would have detonated in this day and age.
Meanwhile, Global Golf Post’s John Steinbreder has a lovely story to tell of the clergyman who was given what was to all intents and purposes an honorary membership at a local club in the U.S. The members clearly felt that to have a man of the cloth in their midst could only be a good thing.
Too much of a good thing, as it turned out. Far from following normal protocol in making discreet use of the privilege, the minister spent his days playing golf and tennis. However, once he and his wife took to lying by the pool in their swimming gear, members of a certain generation wasted no time in suggesting that he should move to pastures new.
Lewine Mair
E-MAIL LEWINE