LBGC Centenary Book - Flipbook - Page 24
Langland Centenary Book
15/2/05
6:08 pm
Page 24
The History of the Club
Chapter 3: After the War
Clubhouse with third green in background - 1954
The first few years after the war saw little change in the Club.
Licences were still required to carry out repairs and were hard
to come by, consequently the fabric of the Clubhouse and
outbuildings, especially the roofs, was getting worse and worse.
The Club, because of the inability to spend money on
necessary operations, was still investing several hundred
pounds a year, and keeping the subscriptions to pre-war levels.
This latter policy was to boomerang on the Club in later years
because, when savings had been expended on repair work, the
income had been reduced to a comparatively low level and
caused many difficulties.
Some innovations took place, however, and one was a system
of identification buttons which visitors were requested to
display to prove they had paid their fees.This scheme fell into
disuse as the Club did not have the staff or the volunteers
available to verify whether visitors wore a badge.
The ban on non-playing visitors was now officially lifted and
discussions were again taking place about the road.This was
now becoming a complete disgrace, and with the immediate
post-war shortage of cars and spares, members and visitors
were tending to become discouraged from using the course
and the Clubhouse. Many used the Corporation Car Park and
walked to the Clubhouse. Not, it should be said the car park
immediately behind the seventeenth green, as at that time that
area was still a kitchen garden for the Langland Bay Hotel.
Many members had cause to complain about damage to their
cars when attempting to use the road which was worse than a
cart track.
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The major issue at this time was; however, to renew the lease
and with only about ten years remaining it was considered
advisable to commence negotiations immediately.The wisdom
of this became apparent when it was reported that the
Solicitor acting for the landlord did not anticipate advising his
client to renew, but was considering selling for building plots at
£200 per plot, or £13,500 for the whole. Fortunately, Greig
Simpson and George Shellard were able to convince the
Solicitor that the new Town and Country Planning Act would
be unlikely to allow building, and that a renewal of the lease
would be in the interests of the landlord. George was able to
renew the lease on the cliff-lands from the Duke of Beaufort’s
Estate and when in 1949 a ninety-nine year lease was signed at
a rental of £450 per annum, the collective sigh of relief nearly
blew all the flags away! This is, however, jumping ahead
somewhat.
Early in 1947 Stan Turner, erstwhile professional at Swansea Bay
was appointed professional when Ernie Goodman decided not
to return to Langland after the war. Stan was probably the best
golfer of all the Langland professionals, but was apt “to go off
the boil” if a putt was missed, or a ball kicked the wrong way.
Off the tee his action was magnificent and he hit the ball a
long, long way. He played in a number of tournaments but with
little success. Purely as a digression his photograph appears in
Burford Golf Club Clubhouse where he was present with his
father at the opening of that Club.
In November 1947 Turner converted the main outbuilding, now
Mark Evans shop but then disused, into an indoor golf school. It