Antique Golf Clubs from Scotland: Clubmakers

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Clubmakers

W T Lane
Penzance
The Sancreed links in Penzance officially opened in January 1909 and the first professional was William Thomas Lane. He, in turn, was the son of W H Lane, the long-serving professional at Mullion, and his wife, Susan, born on 25 February 1883. Like his father, he had begun his career as a blacksmith and is so recorded on the 1901 census but, by 1911, living with wife, Ada, and a 14 year old servant at Belebba, Sancreed, he is described as a golf professional.

He was at the club for the opening of the new pavilion in 1910, partnering the club secretary in a match against the pros from Lelant, Fred Whiting and E A Firstbrook, and he was there at the end when it burned to the ground in May 1938.

The First World War saw him conscripted and he attested on 11 December 1915 and was sent to the Army Reserve. He was mobilised and sent to the Royal Garrison Artillery at Woolwich the following year but medically discharged ‘as no longer physically fit fot war service’ in August 1917.

The club was presented with a trophy by a visitor in 1933 and it was named the W T Lane Cup ‘in recognition of a fine sportsman’. At the annual meeting in November 1934 he was also elected an honorary member after 25 years service.

His son, William Cyril Thomas Lane, born in 1911, was his assistant, qualifying for the News of the World finals from the West of England championships in 1936 and winning the prize for the best score by an assistant.

The 1939 register still shows him as professional and greenkeeper but sometime early in the Second World War the course was ploughed up for agricultural use but William was still there to talk about the old days, looking forward to a visit back to Cornwall by Jim Barnes in 1949.

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