TONY Kelly’s comprehensive article on Heworth Golf Club (The Press, January 29) asks the questions have other clubs been affected by falling membership and the credit crunch.

Some of your readers may not be aware of the background which led to the current situation.

In the 1980s the governing body of golf, the Royal and Ancient, conducted a survey on golf in Great Britain and in the late 80s a booklet was produced called The Way Forward.

At the time there was a boom in the sport with long waiting lists, sometimes as many as 150 people at many clubs and it was taking two to five years to become a member from the waiting list.

The R&A research showed that 700 new clubs were needed to meet the demand.

The Government also suggested that farmers should diversify and change land into golf courses. A start was made on this and many new courses were built.

Some time later, my understanding is that further research showed that many golfers were on three or four waiting lists and therefore the number of new courses needed was not 700, but perhaps half that number.

So far as the York area is concerned some 13 courses have been built within a radius of 30 miles in the last 20 years or so – Allerthorpe Park, Aldwark Manor, Boothferry, Cocksford (now gone), Flaxby, Forest Park, Forest of Galtres, Kilnwick Percy, Romanby, Rudding Park, Scarthingwell, Spofforth and Swallow Hall.

It is pretty obvious therefore that the situation has changed from not enough golf courses to far too many.

This is clearly the reason why clubs such as Heworth don’t have enough members.

Malcolm Huntington, Heslington, York.