Golf: Golfing hazard with added venom

May 13 2008 by Our Correspondent, Liverpool Daily Post

DAVID HOLGATE, who started playing golf as a boy in Rhodesia, is the 2008 captain of Heswall.

His father, a butcher and farmer, emigrated to Rhodesia after World War Two where, with his friends, he made the golf course from land provided by a farmer.

The hazards included snakes in the grass.

“You did take care if your ball went in the long grass,” he recalls.

The greens were made of sand with a light covering of tar and golfers used a scraper to smooth a way to the hole.

Mr Holgate, a general manager with an electronic company before retirement, lived in the south when he returned to England, before moving to Merseyside, where he played at Arrowe Park before joining Heswall in 1977. He was chairman of the club’s am-am competition, an open fund-raising event.

He was a keen swimmer and, as a teenager, a trampolinist, becoming north west champion. He also entered the national championship several times, where on one occasion he was placed 12th.

His wife Mary is also a member at Heswall and past secretary of the ladies section.

His charity for his year of office is for research into macular degeneration, organised by the St Paul’s Eye Appeal, based at the Royal Liverpool University Hospital.

The new lady captain is Mollie Lovell, captain at a golf club for the second time in her golf career.

When she lived at Greasby about 30 years ago her friends included other ladies whose husbands were at sea for long periods. The men served in the Merchant Navy, where they became captains.

Some of the ladies decided to start playing golf and joined Arrowe Park, where Mrs Lovell became lady captain before joining Heswall in 1988.

She is married to Geoffrey, a retired sea captain and also a Heswall member, and they have three children and six grandchildren.

Mrs Lovell has chosen Hoylake lifeboats for her charity.

Fund-raising will including a penalty for those visiting the lady captain’s bunker during her year and also a charity golf day.