A SOFT TARGET? W


hy is it that golf courses, and golfers, attracts such bad press? What makes intelligent people go off on ill-informed, high profile diatribes about a sport they often, clearly, know nothing about? In a recent edition of BIGGA’s


Greenkeeper International, editor Scott MacCallum had a fair old rant about actress Miranda Richardson, her of Blackadder’s Queenie fame, after she stated that golf courses depress her. Hardly an edition of the BBC’s Top


300 year old oak at Brocket Hall


continually take a pop at everything golf?


64 Why does the media By PETER BRITTON


Gear passes without some reference to golf, usually via the size of a car’s boot being “too small to fit the golf clubs in, which can’t be a bad thing” Jeremy Clarkson comment. Recently the Daily Telegraph got on its high horse proclaiming that golf is “ruining our green and pleasant land”. Where did they get this theme from? English Heritage apparently who, according to the Telegraph, claim that golf courses are doing irreversible damage to our heritage. The Telegraph goes on to cite a couple of examples: Rudding Park near Harrogate and Brocket Hall in Hertfordshire. Rudding Park is, apparently, “a case of over-intensive development”, whilst Brocket Hall is “an alien landscape” Well, let’s take a closer look at those two examples. Rudding Park is, in Stately Home years, quite young. It was completed in


But let’s return to the golf course,


the target of the Telegraph’s angst. Of the 2,000 acre estate the 18 hole course and 6 hole short course cover an area of approximately 200 acres. The rest is mature woodland, parkland and agricultural land that is maintained in an environmentally friendly way. What the golf course, hotel and conference facilities allow, is the finances to achieve this. Of that 200 acres only half is manicured turf, the remainder is, again, maintained for the environment. The Hawtree designed courses retain all natural features, such as mature


the early 19th century and was the home of Sir Joseph Radcliffe, a Baronet from Lancashire. Over the years the house fell in to disrepair and was saved by the Mackaness family who bought the house and 2,000 acre estate in 1972. Their immediate investment was the restoration of the house, the upgrade of agricultural land and the upkeep of the traditional estate properties. All worthy intentions, I’m sure you’ll agree. All this restoration had to be paid for and, in 1973, the blueprint for the leisure developments was implemented with the opening of a holiday park. In 1987 the house was opened as a conference centre followed by the completion of the golf course in 1995. The fifty bedroom hotel was completed in 1997.


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