For Mark Rowlinson: nice Grauniad article featuring Pat Ward-Thomas

[Marty Bonnar]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/2012/jan/03/prisoners-second-world-war-midge-gillies

cheers,
MB.

[Mark_Rowlinson]

Thank you, fellow muso,

Much enjoyed.

M.

[Jason Hines]

Thanks for the link Marty, a nice reminder as I sit here this Sunday morning sipping my coffee thinking about the endless choices of what to do with my free time today.

Jason

[BCrosby]

Thanks for the link Marty. I would have not seen the wonderful article without it.

Might I assume that your reference to Rowlinson in the heading is because he is a fan of Pat Ward-Thomas?

If so, I could not agree more with Mark. P W-T is vastly under-appreciated. He was a terrific writer. His account of his first encounters with Irish golf courses is some of the best stuff ever written on the game.

Bob

 

[Marty Bonnar]

Bob,
check your copy/ies of The World Atlas of Golf!!!
cheers,
MB.

[Mark_Rowlinson]

Bob, I had the honour of following in P W-T's footsteps when we compiled the all-new World Atlas of Golf. Daunting!

I spent some time in Poland in communist times on concert trips. Transport was desperately slow (it still is!) and I had plenty of time to observe things, not least the use of horses in agriculture. I saw quite a lot of heathland and some big, sandy expanses and I couldn't help visualise traditional horse-and-scoop golf courses being constructed at minimal expense on such ground. There are golf courses in Poland now but of what kind I know not. I had a kind offer to visit one when I was there in 2010 but I didn't have time.

[Tom_Doak]

One of the older members at Crystal Downs, Bob Laubach, was a prisoner in the same camp as Ward-Thomas and one of the golfers there.  But it never occurred to me to ask him if he knew Pat Ward-Thomas!  D'oh!  I am sure he must have.

[Bob_Huntley]

Mark,

All I really know about Pat Ward-Thomas is that he had the most sulferous tongue when it came to describing one of his missed shots.

Bob

[Mike Hendren]

Thanks Martin.  I think I'll pull The Lay of the Land off the shelf this evening and read a tad.

Bogey

[Christoph Meister]

Hello Mark,

first of all let me wish you a happy and sucessful new year 2012 even though we are almost half-way through January allready.

The Danish Golf Museum at Vejle, Jutland, has an interesting display featuring the 9-hole course as mentionned by Ward-Thomas at Sagan prison camp:

 

To Tom Doak:

After having read about Robert A. Laubach spending some time in a German prison camp during WWII playing Golf in the monthly USGA magazine I contacted Robert Laubach as we were allready researching for the Centenary Book of the German Golf Union (published in 2007)by letter in August 2002 (The USGA had kindly forwarded me his contact details). It had also occured to me that maybe he was referring to the same Sagan prison camp where Ward-Thomas was an inmate and I asked Mr. Laubach several questions, but unfortunately never received a reply from him.

Christoph

[Tony_Muldoon]

Christoph that’s amazing, some of the replies we get on here defy belief.  Thank you.

Did you visit the camp?  If so do you know how long those cabins were – to give a sense of scale.  I suspect it was almost a pitch and putt except for the distance achieved on home made equipment must have made the challenge.  One of the best early histories of Golf “Scotland’s Game” says it was once two games. The long game played by rich folk with caddies on the links with fine clubs and featheries, and the Short game played with home made gear around the town, by poorer folk.  This takes you right back to that spirit.



Is the object lower right a misshapen ball?  In the short game the ball was wood or even a stone.


Can only guess some of the local rules

1 Balls hit over the security fences are Out of Bounds and it is FORBIDDEN to retrieve them!

2

[Marty Bonnar]

Christoph,
what Tony said!

THAT is amazing. What a neat routing too. I wonder if there was a TOC 17th 'over the cabin' equivalent hole there???

This may have been the Course with the LARGEST OOB EVER: The REST OF EUROPE!

GREAT STUFF!
best,
MB.

[BCrosby]

"This may have been the Course with the LARGEST OOB EVER: The REST OF EUROPE!"

Not just the largest OOB, but the most lethal. You try to retrieve your ball, they shoot you.

Bob

[Christoph Meister]

Tony,

The course was rather on the short side and therefore it was the short variety of the Scottish game played there!

In a letter sent by PoW Oliver Green to the Danish Golf Museum in 1995 he points out that the 9 holes were between
30m (33yds) and 100m (109yds) in length and the total length of the course was 770m (842yds). (the barracks
were 30m in length and the total area of that part of Sagan PoW camp was 120m by 300m. Par was 29.

Btw three sides of the course had a trip wire area 10m in front of a double barbed wire fence guarding the OOB. On the remaining
side there was a concrete wall with other areas of the PoW camp behind.

In 1944, to celebrate the invasion of the Allied Troups, a Sagan Golf Club singles and foursomes championship was played.
Together with Wing Commander Norman Ryder Flight Lieutenant Oliver Green won the foursomes championship.

Has Oliver green writes he holds this title "... in perpetuity, because the camp was evacuated in late January 1945 just ahead of the advancing Russian army which overran the area and STALAG Luft 3".

On the bottom right hand corner of the photo you can see how golf balls were produce in the camp:

"A small, round, heavy object about 1cm in diameter was used as the central core; this was wrapped in a resilient material such as crepe rubber taken from the sole of a shoe...." as Oliver Green is stating...at the end of the production process two pieces of leather cut into an eight were used as the outside cover stitched together like on a baseball..

Christoph



I have not been there (yet) as Sagan today is part of Poland.