Delighted to see this reference to inland golf in Wales. Back in the more innocent days of George Houghton's Golf Addict Invades Wales (1969), Rogerstone and Cardiff's Radyr jockeyed for reputational position as 'the premier inland course in Wales', with Whitchurch (home course n its time to some celebrated Welsh amateurs, none more distinguished than the current British Walker Cup Captain, Nigel Edwards) and perhaps the Glamorganshire at Penarth both mentioned in despatches. The emergence of firstly St Pierre (which in its halcyon tournament days of the 1960s and 1970s was a genuine public magnet, even though it also has some claim to be the strangest venue ever to be chosen for either a Curtis or Walker Cup, certainly on the British side of the Atlantic) and then more recently Celtic Manor, in its various manifestations, have shaken things up a lot, and it's nice to be reminded of some of the older virtues. TD's description of Rogerstone echoes George Houghton's assessment of the Glamorganshire: 'Slopes are most gradual, and there is a peaceful air of the past which is conducive to quiet, unspectacular golf by unhurried people on sunny mid-week days'.
Houghton is a golf writer and cartoonist who has all but disappeared from view, and I am sure that 90% of (certainly) American readers of GCA have never heard of him. But in a funny sort of way, his work gives as good an insight into the smallish world of British club golf in the 1950s and 1960s as any. He was a Scot (born in Perth) who lived in Paris for many years, served with great distinction in RAF Intelligence, and wrote over thirty books, combining his cartoons (many of which hung or hang in the clubhouses of featured clubs: there is one, entirely characteristic, depicting a Harlech monthly medal played in a high wind and pouring rain which adorns the walls of the RStD to this day) with gently amusing commentary. His publisher (Pelham Books) claimed that his 'Total sales exceed by far those of any other (British) golf writer', and there is no reason not to believe them. Of interest to GCA, there is a rare but rather readable guide to British courses from (I think) the late-1950s which is worth checking out, and Houghton also wrote accounts of his 'Golf Addict' trips to the US, Japan, and elsewhere.