This is a transcription of a conversation Kay had with Liz
Borrow and Graham Lawrence on 23 January 2006.
We used to live in Waterlooville and played tennis. We always
played some form of sport. My husband, George, and I bought a
piece of land at Soberton in 1958. It took two years to organise
everything and get the house built. During this time we spent our
weekends in a caravan for fun. We got to know the Meon Valley, its people,
members of the golf club and we were asked by several members if we played
golf. I said I didn't but George said he'd played once as a boy
at Rowlands Castle. Frank Lindley, the secretary, asked George if he'd
like to come up to the club and have a round one Sunday. So George
went up and had a good round with Frank who asked if George would like
to play on the following Sunday, which he did and nearly beat Frank. Frank
said "Well done" to George, quickly followed by "Your handicap's 18". Handicaps
were given on observation then. This was in about 1961.
I had to learn to play. George was a natural, he'd never had
a lesson in his life. I had to learn every mortal thing. In the beginning
there was no pro at Corhampton so Bert Dedman would come over from Winchester
to give us lessons. I would also go to Winchester for extra lessons
mainly because I was influenced by 'Babe' McNeil (she was a Silvester).
She was a good player and encouraged me to have more lessons. Both
her and her husband 'Mac' were good players. They used to take their
dog round the course. The dog was called 'Smudge' and it would sit as quiet
as anything when they teed off. You could take your dog round then. Later
on I went to Pat Roberts at Rowlands Castle for lessons. He
told me I'd never improve my handicap because my grip was all wrong. I
also went to Southampton Municipal for a couple of lessons with the pro
called Mason. Once I'd got my grip right I got down to 18.
When I joined there were about 25 ladies. When I was captain in 1969
there were forty ladies. It took me quite a long time to get a
handicap but when I did, because there weren't many ladies, I would
get put into one of the teams. George played in a lot of matches. He
got down to a 14 handicap. We weren't limited to when we could play but
we were decent types so we let the men play on Sunday mornings as they'd
been working all week and the ladies would play their medal competitions
on Saturday and Sunday afternoons.
You stepped into the old club house and the bar was over to the left.
The ladies room on the right of the door was about eight foot
square with an Elsan toilet and little dressing table and a mirror.
There was a water pump outside. In the main room of the clubhouse
was a notice board, a box with cards in, another box for money. We
used to play dominoes, cards and bingo in the clubhouse. When the last
people left the clubhouse in the evening they had to jump over the door
mat under which was a burglar alarm connected to Droxford police.
When I was asked to go on the committee in 1964, there was Eileen Banting
who was secretary and Elizabeth West who was captain but we didn't see
much of her. We seemed to have lots of meetings without her for
some reason. There was Jessy Lutman. Elizabeth West was very
particular and exacting but helpful. She used to criticise the state of
the ladies room because she thought it was not up to standard and we should
have something better. I used to play with her daughter, Peggy, in
the Knight Cup where we went round the county playing people in different
clubs. I can still remember the exact spot at Winchester where we
lost. We played well together, she was short about 14 and I was long. I always
enjoyed playing with people, but particularly when I was playing with someone,
male or female, who was much better than me. When I played with a better
golfer it would bring out my best golf. I used to play my brother, George
Michael Baker, who played off 10 at one time. He was a member at Waterlooville
and Corhampton.
I played in mixed matches. I recently played with Mike Goodall in
the mixed competitions. He used to play with Denham Jones who was
a very good player. George used to play with Mike's father, Len.
There was a Sunday morning gang consisting of Fred Banting,
Frank Lindley, Bob Linnell, Len Goodall, and A G P Lewis. I remember
playing with Fred Banting at Salterns where there were lots of gullies
where the water ran down. He put me in one of these gullies with about six
inches of water in it. They thought I was quite crazy but I took a
club and got the ball out. Those events were very social, one big laugh
really. When we were visited by teams from Alresford and Waterlooville they
always stayed after the matches and socialised. They felt they were
part of us.
As a nine-hole course it was kept in good shape by Reggie Reeves and
another person. The greens were much smaller. They used a
gang mower to cut the fairways. I remember the third. It was all grown
over. It was petrifying. If you did not get through the small
gap in the trees you ended up in the bushes. It was only a par 3
then, not right back where it is now.. I used my faithful four wood
to get to the green. I didn't have a five wood until later on when they
were introduced. My first set of clubs, a half set, cost £7.50.
I bought them from Dedman. They were in a cream bag. I used
a trolley. I wore slacks to play in. I was one of the first ladies
to play in slacks that finished just below the knee. We had to wear
men's waterproofs because ladies' versions weren't available.
I was assistant secretary of the ladies section for years. I
was assistant to Peggy Fletcher and one year when she was ill I took
over from her. I did twelve years on the ladies committee. If
we wanted Daphne Jacobs and Eileen Banting to play I had to pick them up.
Daphne Jacobs lived in the middle of Meonstoke and would cycle up
that long hill to the golf club. Eileen Junqua proposed me for captain.
There were two sets of ladies tees, red for medal play and blue for tee
of the day. We used to get confused because if we played off the blue tee
in a medal we had to take three off the tee and play from the red tee.
We had some very good lady golfers, Eileen Banting, Peggy Linnell,
Pat Jones, Norah Wilson to name but a few. Norah got down to a
5 handicap. They used to hold Open Meetings for outsiders to play the
course. Usually they were very well attended but if they were short
of players they asked the members to make up the numbers. They didn't
have grandiose prizes for these events.
Kay Smith on the first tee in 1963
Kay Smith, Lillian Dovey, Liz Ralls, 1983
When I was Captain, in 1969, I gave a putter for the first prize,
a handbag for the second prize and a box of chocolates for the best long
handicapper. For my captain's day I shared it with the men's captain.
There were 80 men and 40 ladies playing during the day. It was a
lovely day. We all had a tea together. The captain, Peter Dacombe,
gave a prize for the ladies. I wore the safari dress I'd had made for me
in Kenya. It was ideal for golf as it had no fitted waste. I wore it for
years. There were not extravagant prizes for competitions in those days.
I remember playing Highpost in an Open Meeting. First prize was a
dozen golf balls, second prize was six and third was three. When
you finished your captaincy you introduced your successor to the Society
of Hampshire Lady Captains.
In the late sixties there was talk of buying the land to the south
of the club including that farm. On the committee at the time were Alec
Newbury, Dennis Pink, my George, Peter Dacombe and Frank Lindley. The
land was for offer at about £19,500. The committee were all
petrified they would not be able to raise the money. In those
days it was very difficult to borrow money, unlike today. The clubhouse
and course had to be improved from being nine holes, but, without borrowing
money, it would be impossible. George was a surveyor and an estate agent
so he knew about the value of land, its potential and the necessity to borrow
money to invest. The land was not bought and many members were disappointed
at a possible lost opportunity.
I went to several of the annual dances which were held in the Curzon
Rooms in Waterlooville. They were quite well attended with additional
support from members of Waterlooville Golf Club. I remember
when I was Ladies Captain I had a green dress made and a pair of satin
shoes dyed green to match the dress. We all dressed in our finery. The
men wore dinner suits. There were a few speeches and sometimes the secretary
would say a few words. I went to them for quite a while but eventually
got fed up because my George didn't dance and the noise got louder. I
couldn't hear him speak across the table so I told George I'd go back to
them again when I was ninety.
When the new clubhouse was built we didn't do the same things as we
did in the old clubhouse like playing card games and dominoes. I think
we went upmarket. Many new members joined and we'd left behind the cosy
atmosphere of the old clubhouse.
In 1975 just after the course had 18 holes Beryl Green, the County Advisor
came to play the course and assess the Standard Scratch score for the course.
Peggy Fletcher, the ladies secretary, and myself, the assistant secretary,
walked with her. Beryl had a tape recorder which was quite a novelty
in those days. High tech has moved on since then . Coming up the eighteenth
she had a second shot to try and pick it in two but fell just short. She
laughed and said when the course settles down it should become a par 4 but
it never did.
Before the bungalow was built there was a huge outcry about the
cost of it. Ron Crockford was the first occupier of the bungalow.
He was a lovely person and was always encouraging the ladies to
play. He was very good with his irons.
We played the course backwards once when Bob Harvey was the captain.
It was a hoot.