A Brief History
Gordon Emerton-Court
The Association was founded at a meeting held at Littlestone Golf Club on October 23rd, 1995.
The meeting had been organised by Gordon Emerton-Court of Littlestone G.C. Gordon had founded a similar association, The DEVON MEN VETERAN GOLFERS ASSOCIATION, in 1970, when he was a member of the Churston and Okehampton clubs. His reason for this, as he put it rather succinctly as befitted an old thespian, was that having reached the age of 60 he found that there was little opportunity of playing in club matches despite the fact that he still had a single figure handicap. Faced with this predicament he organised the veterans of Devon to play in inter-club matches. There was then a natural progression to matches against their neighbouring county, CORNWALL.
In the mid 90’s there was a rapid expansion in the number of golf clubs being formed in KENT in response to the R&A’s assessment that many more golf courses would be needed to meet the foreseeable demand for golf as a leisure activity. These new clubs had difficulty in arranging matches against the older established clubs whose fixture lists were already full. As a result of this, the members of the new clubs found themselves in a similar predicament to that which Gordon had found himself in 1970. His reaction to this situation was the same as before, form a Veterans Association which all veterans in the County could join and then organise competitions for them to play in. The inaugural competition was played over the Littlestone course on the morning of the October 23rd, for a trophy donated by JOHN BAILEY of the host club. The meeting at which the Association was founded took place immediately afterwards.
The link with DEVON and CORNWALL is maintained to this day by matches being played against them every year on a 'home and away' basis.
Sadly, our founder departed for that golf course in the sky on January 1st, 2003 at the ripe old age of 96.