MUNICIPAL GOLF LINKS

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 179, 18 April 1918, Page 4

MUNICIPAL GOLF LINKS

QUESTION OF AN ANNUAL TICKET. Mr. W. Whitehead, secretary of the Municipal Golf Club, has been advised, in regard to the club's request for the issue of an. annual ticket as optional to payment per round, that the Reserves Committeo of the City Council proposes to recommend to the council the issue of'annual tickets for play on the links on the scale of £'i 3s for men and £1 lis. 6d. for women for a term of one year, in order to ascertain how such an arrangement would work. It will 1)0 remembered that when Dr. Cameron and Mr. Whitehead interviewed the committee a month ago they suggested that tho fees should be ,£2 2s. and £1 Is. Speaking on the committee a suggestion, Mr. Whitehead said that the fees proposed were unreasonable, particularly when it was lemembcred that these links were established in order to enable people to play golf whp could not afford the fees charged by established clubs. It appeared to him Uiat the attitude of the committee showed a desira on its part to make this one reserve (tho links at Borhampore) ray, whereas such an idea never entered tho members heads in respect to Kelburn Park, Anderson Park, Wakefield Park, and Newtown Park. The Basin Reserve, too, had always been a fairly costly ground, but perhaps that was necessary as an open space in a densely populated part of the city, an argument which could hardlr bo applied to the other grounds he had mentioned. Why, then, was an attempt being made to make the golf links pay by charging unreasonable rates for annual tickets? It was rot tho way to popularise the links, and was certainly tho reverse of an encouragement for people of moderate means to take up golf, as healthy on open-air recreation as existed.