Council’s wrong to trash ‘little gem’

The famous golfer ‘Dr’ John Jacobs transformed a city rubbish dump into the little gem that is Entry Hill Golf Course, where many were introduced to golf before moving on to bigger clubs.

I am one of these grateful players and I used to go back to Entry with my grandsons to help get them started. Some golfers stayed with Entry and enjoyed playing competitions under the auspices of founding President John Sercombe assisted by Ray Pope who was often Captain of the club’s team. Apparently this exquisite pocket course is to be trashed and converted into a mountain bike course. Nothing wrong with providing a cycling course but surely not by vandalising a perfect golf course that already exists. This sort of thing is happening to municipal courses over the whole country and it is for one reason the lure of a building project. It is not for high-minded reasons such as providing for youngsters but rather for making money. We do not enquire who will make the money besides the builders, we simply point out that a lovely and successful design is being trashed. The council was too parsimonious to look after the course properly, paying for the services of only one man who tried to look after the whole nine-hole course by himself but even so the course was worth playing. It could have been really excellent if there had been a larger workforce. Not to look after such an asset is quite scandalous and the council stands convicted of shabby, obtuse, anti-social behaviour. We should vote them out of office as soon as possible.