Wartime Golf Rules

One evening in late autumn 1940 Luftwaffe bombs fell on The Richmond Golf Club. This inconvenient event couldn’t be ignored and some inspired Members produced a set of tongue-in-cheek Temporary Rules. The rules attracted publicity and were widely published to demonstrate British defiance of Germany’s aggression.

Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s Minister of Propaganda used the rules as the theme of a broadcast by William (Lord Haw-Haw) Joyce: “By means of these ridiculous reforms the English snobs try to impress the people with a kind of pretended heroism. They can do so without danger, because, as everyone knows, the German Air Force devotes itself only to the destruction of military targets and objectives of importance to the war effort.” Perhaps not coincidently, the Club’s laundry was destroyed in a subsequent bombing raid.