Coronavirus: Scottish golf club offers free membership to NHS workers

A Scottish golf club is offering free membership to NHS workers as a 'thank-you' gesture for their efforts during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

Cowdenbeath Golf Club is offering free membership to NHS workers through to the 2021-22 season as a 'thank-you' for their efforts during the coronavirus outbreak.

The opportunity for NHS staff to join for free once the world heath crisis is over is being offered by Cowdenbeath Golf Club until the end of the 2021-22 season.

To play, anyone taking up the offer would still need to pay a green fee to Fife Golf Trust, which oversees the running of the course.

"We are a small club," captain Derek Beveridge told The Scotsman. "We are not going to get 30 or 40 new members out of this.

"But, even if we get one or two, if we as a club can give something back to the NHS workers, we feel we are doing the right and decent thing."

The idea was proposed by Beveridge in a Whatsapp group chat with his fellow committee members earlier in the week.

"I asked them, 'what do you think about offering free membership to NHS members'," he added.

"Within a minute, everyone got back to me saying 'what a great idea, let's go ahead with this'.

"Our president, who is a teacher, put out the post on Twitter today and it has gone ballistic, really, It has all been really positive.

"With any mining community in Fife, Edinburgh or the Central Belt, this is when the people really come together.

"Originally, it was going to be for the 20-21 season, but we are going to extend it to 21-22 season as no one knows how long the current closure of courses around the country is going to last.

"If a NHS worker took advantage of our offer to join, he or she might bring someone else along who could think about joining the club."

Cowdenbeath Golf Club was originally a nine-holer on the site of the old Dora coal mine.

It opened in 1991 before being extended to 18 holes in 1996, when the new layout was opened by Sir Michael Bonallack.

Last week, Duddingston in Edinburgh came up with an idea to nominate one of its medals later in the year as a fund-raiser for the NHS, something other clubs have also decided to do.

Elsewhere, Nairn Dunbar is flying an NHS flag on one of its greens to show the club's support for key workers around the country.