Club dealing with media storm as greenkeeper is suspended for giving water to animal sanctuary

A golf club is dealing with a negative publicity storm after it suspended one of its greenkeepers, after he allowed a neighbouring animal sanctuary to take some of its irrigation water in an emergency.

The Daily Mail picked up the story when the greenkeeper, who has only been called ‘Gary’, from Chelsfield Lakes Golf Centre in Kent, was suspended.

He had allowed Jodeen Animal Sanctuary to siphon 1,000 litres of water from the club’s sprinkler system on a hot day earlier this month, after vandals drained its water tank and the animals, predominantly ill-treated horses, sheep and pigs, were in danger of going thirsty.

According to the Daily Mail, Gary admitted giving the water, which, stated the paper, was worth 84 pence, away, and was promptly suspended.

The newspaper quoted an unnamed source who said: “This guy Gary has been a loyal servant at the club for more than 10 years and he gets suspended over a bit of water worth under a quid.

“The owners of the golf club should hang their heads in shame – did they want the animals to die of thirst?”

The story led to scores of negative comments about the club online – both on the Daily Mail’s comments section and on social media.

Several people demanded that the greenkeeper get his job back, while others offered to pay the 84 pence to cover the club’s loss.

Comments such as ‘So instead of using this as a great PR stunt they have truly shown how petty they are. Scrooges’ and ‘How mean can you get? They want boycotting’ each received over 400 ‘likes’ on the Daily Mail website, while on Twitter comments about the story included ‘very poor show by Chelsfield Lakes Golf Centre if true’ and ‘could have used that act for good publicity for yourselves’.

Neither social media nor the Daily Mail have so far been able to get a comment from either the golf club or Gary, and even the owner of Jodeen Animal Sanctuary has so far said very little about the incident, which has led many to speculate that there may be more to the story than what the Daily Mail has published.