Fury over ‘kangaroo court bullies’ at £100k golf club

WILL it be 4-irons at dawn at Wentworth Club, as the battle between the golf club’s members and its new Chinese owner turns increasingly acrimonious?

Members of the historic Surrey course, where Sir Michael Parkinson and Sir Bruce Forsyth have teed off, are outraged about the Reignwood conglomerate’s plans to introduce a new fee structure that prices out all but the wealthiest one per cent. Several long- standing ‘ordinary’ members have resigned in protest because the new regime has ‘ totally destroyed’ the club. And now the club’s CEO, Stephen Gibson, has summoned one of the most vocal dissidents of the new regime, Kirill Klip, to a disciplinary hearing that Klip’s supporters call a ‘kangaroo court’.

Klip, a Russian entrepreneur who has lived on the Wentworth Estate for 12 years, has also been threatened with legal action for fomenting unrest over Reignwood’s plans to t urn t he 9 2 - y e ar- ol d c ourse into what the rebels call a ‘millionaire’s playground’.

A Wentworth spokesman says the dispute with Klip is a ‘ private matter’. But Klip is more forthcoming. He tells me: ‘I am totally shocked to be bullied and intimidated with legal threats from Wentworth. I came to the UK from Russia because it is a free country, and I am fighting to save a historic British institution.’

On April 1, all 4,000 Wentworth members will have to reapply for a reduced roster of 888 memberships within 90 days, but only those who complete a ‘high net worth certification’ will be eligible to re-join.

From April 2017, those who are accepted will have to pay a £100,000 debenture, plus increased annual membership fees of up to £16,000.

Another member, Richard Goldstein, uses even more colourful language to describe the behaviour of the Reignwood management, telling me it’s ‘lower than a snake’s belly in a wagon rut’.

God knows what the conversation is like at the 19th hole.