Half-price golf at Greenburn for NHS staff once play resumes

Fauldhouse club is the latest to thank health professionals
The Greenburn course has been in its present location since 1953 and was built by the members themselvesThe Greenburn course has been in its present location since 1953 and was built by the members themselves
The Greenburn course has been in its present location since 1953 and was built by the members themselves

Greenburn has become the latest Scottish golf club to come up with a ‘thank-you’ initiative for NHS workers fighting the coronavirus crisis.

The Fauldhouse club is offering half-price golf to all NHS staff, with no requirement to take out a membership, until the end of this year.

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The idea stemmed from club officials being encouraged by a member to come up with something positive amid the current doom and gloom surrounding golf clubs.

The gesture follows Duddingston deciding to nominate one of its medals later in the year as a fund-raiser for the NHS, an idea that is set to be copied by numerous other clubs.

The Cowdenbeath club, meanwhile, is offering free membership to NHS workers, though that still requires a green fee to be paid to Fife Golf Trust.

Greenburn’s gesture to NHS staff once the course is open again has no strings attached.

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However, club officials are hoping that giving people a taste of what is on offer could lead to the odd new member being attracted going forward.

“One of our members, I think his sister and one of her friends work for the NHS, asked us if we could do something,” said treasurer Alex Hunter.

“Obviously, we’ve also got people work in the NHS as well, so we thought it would be a great gesture to offer other NHS the ability to come and play our course.

“If one person pays, the other goes for free. If two people play, the other two go free.

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“We will see how it goes until the end of the year and, if it proves popular, we will look at offering them reduced membership if they wanted to take that up in the long term.

People think it is not costing us anything, but that’s introduced guests as revenue that we are giving away.

“You are happy to do your bit if you can where you can, though. There’s a lot of clubs taking that view at the moment, which is great.”

Like most other clubs in Scotland, Greenburn is facing uncertainty about the future during the current closure. “With existing members, we’ve decided to give them £60 each off introduced guests free,” added Hunter. “That is in lieu of them paying when they can’t get to play. I think 60 per cent of our membership have paid in full, but 40 per cent have still to come in. We’ve had a number of enquires about whether we are going to give them a payment holiday.

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“At this moment in time, when we are only really starting into this process and don’t know how long it is going to last, it is too early to think about giving money back when all our revenue has been affected.

“We’ve applied for the £25,000 business grant being offered by the Scottish Government and we are waiting on the outcome of that.

Meanwhile, two Borders clubs continue to be supported by local communities through appeal funds set up since the closure period started.

Peebles has raised close to £7,000 in the first week of its appeal while a similar scheme at Torwoodlee is just under £5,000 in a few days.

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