Five-month-old baby joins golf club during the lockdown to safeguard its future

The manager of a Welsh golf club has hailed the “marvellous gesture” of a relatively new member who has bought an annual subscription for his five-month-old son so that the club can stay in business as it faces a “battle for survival” due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The baby is by some distance the youngest member of the golf club – and perhaps the youngest member of any golf club in the UK.

According to the Leader, Richard Thomas has paid for his five-month-old son Freddie’s first annual subscription to keep Vale of Llangollen Golf Club going through the Covid-19 crisis.

This comes as several golf clubs have launched appeals and initiatives such as emergency renewal schemes so that they do not close down during this lockdown period when all golf clubs in the UK are closed.

Richard Thomas has been a member of  Vale of Llangollen for three years and hopes his son, Freddie, who was only born in October 2019, will take up the sport one day.

Richard said: “Clubs rely on the membership to stay afloat and it was coming up to renewal time when emails were coming out asking people if they would want to renew their membership, despite the fact that there would be no golf for the foreseeable due to this virus.

“I thought it would be a bit of fun if we signed up Freddie and showed some extra support to the club and he’s brought a few smiles in with his membership. I think it would be lovely for him to take golf one day when he’s a bit bigger.”

The delighted dad added that Freddie was the youngest at the Welsh club by quite a few years – with the youngest junior members he can think of at the club aged about six or seven.

Club manager Hayley Henson said: “This marvellous gesture was from one of our newer members who sees the benefit in helping to keep our wonderful club buoyant during these troubling times.

“Like virtually every other golf club in the UK, we face a battle for our survival caused entirely by Covid-19. Of course, it is sometimes difficult to balance the needs of our employees, our membership and the need to maintain the course ready for its eventual reopening set against our present financial limitations.

“We are, literally, taking a week by week approach but have the flexibility to immediately react to changes outside of our control.

“Thankfully we have a truly wonderful membership who continue to support every initiative we offer and, with the proactive approach of our fantastic Board, we will be one that survives.”

Many golf clubs are coming up with innovative ways to incentivise members to renew during this period.

Greenburn Golf Club in Scotland will allow members to reduce theirs guests’ green fees by £60.

“With existing members, we’ve decided to give them £60 each off introduced guest’s fee,”  treasurer Alex Hunter told The Scotsman.

“That is in lieu of them paying when they can’t get to play. I think 60 per cent of our membership have paid in full, but 40 per cent have still to come in. We’ve had a number of enquires about whether we are going to give them a payment holiday.

“At this moment in time, when we are only really starting into this process and don’t know how long it is going to last, it is too early to think about giving money back when all our revenue has been affected.

“We’ve applied for the £25,000 business grant being offered by the Scottish government and we are waiting on the outcome of that.”

The club has also become the latest to offer something to NHS staff.

It is allowing half-price golf to all NHS staff, with no requirement to take out a membership, until the end of this year.

“One of our members, I think his sister and one of her friends work for the NHS, asked us if we could do something,” added Hunter.

“Obviously, we’ve also got people work in the NHS as well, so we thought it would be a great gesture to offer other NHS the ability to come and play our course.

“If one person pays, the other goes for free. If two people play, the other two go free.

“We will see how it goes until the end of the year and, if it proves popular, we will look at offering them reduced membership if they wanted to take that up in the long term.

“People think it is not costing us anything, but that’s introduced guests as revenue that we are giving away.

“You are happy to do your bit if you can where you can, though. There’s a lot of clubs taking that view at the moment, which is great.”

In addition, another golf course has cut the letters ‘NHS’ into a part of its course.

The Reading Chronicle has reported on De Vere Wokefield Estate, where Jamie Anton, director of Golf and Leisure, said: “The team at De Vere Wokefield Estate were keen to show their support and appreciation to the NHS, and recognise those who are involved locally helping to fight the virus at the Royal Berkshire Hospital in Reading.

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“We decided to show our support by hand cutting ‘NHS’ into our main lawn on the rear of our Mansion House.

“It is important that during these challenging times we show support for each other and recognise the extraordinary commitment of our frontline key workers.”