VINTAGE LUNDIN LINKS AND LARGO
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Lundin Ladies Golf - Wartime Green Keeping

23/10/2019

1 Comment

 
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The above postcard image shows the Lundin Ladies Golf Club House on the left and the Greenkeeper's House on the right. The latter was built in 1911, the year after the official opening of the course. The Club House had of course been moved to its present position in late 1909 from its original site at the main Lundin Golf Club (where it was first constructed in 1897). The image pre-dates the upheaval of the Second World War when the War Cabinet instructed that portions of golf courses had to be leased to increase food production. By special arrangement, the Ladies Club gave up more than its quota (two thirds of its area) so that the main Lundin course could remain intact. The much reduced course comprised six holes with the added feature of some grazing sheep (which both supported food production and kept the grass short at at time when there was little fuel for green keeping).

During this period the greenkeeper was  Jimmie Imrie who worked for thirty years for the club from the mid 1920s. When he joined the Auxiliary Fire Service full-time in 1941, his father Robert Imrie took over green keeping, while Mrs Imrie looked after the club house and the role of starter. Robert had been manager to George Bell at Lundin Mill Farm. When Jimmie returned to post after the war, he set about the restoration of the course, including re-seeding and the re-laying out of the lost greens, tees and bunkers. As the book published for the club's centenary by Alan Elliot said of Mr Imrie:

"He was an excellent worker, conscientious and thorough. When it is realised that he put the course back from its wartime ploughing to its former state almost single-handed, it may give some idea of what he did. He worked with the minimum of equipment....a spade, a shovel, a barrow, a roller, an elderly tractor and mowers of great age: an awesome lot of effort. He achieved much in a remarkably short time after the war, and overall he provided the club with a course again when it mattered most."

The full course was officially re-opened on 22 July 1948 with the event shown below (advert from Leven Mail) which was both a competition and a green keeper's benefit (in recognition of Imrie's huge efforts). A similar event (for the both the benefit of the green keeper and for course improvements) was repeated the following few years. Jimmie Imrie left the post of green keeper in 1956 and died in 1985 aged 79. Eddie Wilson was green keeper in the late 1950s and between 1960 and 1978 Andrew Latto carried out the role.
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1 Comment
Alistair Bryden
22/10/2019 02:14:47 pm

I believe that after Jimmie Imrie left the Ladies Course, he moved down to the main course. He used to give us rides in a trailer that he towed behind his tractor... long before the days of Health and Safety. The trailer was usually full of sand taken from a sand pit behind the main club house, likely where the car park is now located. The hillocks behind the club house used to be much higher. Jimmie Imrie lived up at Hatton with his wife and a large number of chickens.

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