"Many establishments have deliberately gone out of their way to make it hard for children to play."

I read Alistair Tait's look at the struggles of British golf clubs and couldn't help thinking that they make American clubs look downright junior golf crazy!

Here’s an anecdote that perfectly sums up the attitude of some British golf clubs: I once had a chat with a club professional who wanted to help his assistant professionals make a little extra money by giving lessons to local people. When he suggested this to the club’s members, they told him they didn’t welcome the initiative. The reason? The club was worried about throwing its doors open to what it termed as “undesirables.”

More damningly, for years many British clubs have had a dreadful attitude toward children. Many establishments have deliberately gone out of their way to make it hard for children to play.

That oh-so-British attitude that children should be seen and not heard was changed to children shouldn’t even be seen, let alone heard.

So clubs said children couldn’t play before a certain time, and couldn’t enter certain rooms. Stringent dress rules applied by old men whose fashion sense was 50 years old also did nothing to make the game sexy to generations of young golfers.