THANKS FOR THE MEMORIES

Mark Townsend returns to Wimbledon Park Golf Club for a final 18-hole round some 16 years after his previous visit...

- Mark Townsend

Ron Townsend was one of the most popular men to ever set foot at Wimbledon Park Golf Club. We all loved him. Ron was a very caring man with a watchful eye for anyone on the sidelines, making sure they were not left out of things. He not only enjoyed himself, but he made sure everyone else did as well.”

Having spent the past week working out how to do my dad some sort of justice, his great friend Derek Kean had managed it in just a few lines. This was December 16, 2005, a date I will never forget as it was the day of Dad’s funeral. Exactly three weeks after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, he had died in a local hospice. It was also the last time I had stepped foot in the golf club where we’d both been members since 1985. It was where he had spent some of his happiest times and where, on that day, I was surrounded by well-meaning faces who I was only used to seeing out on the course.

Dad’s early years were spent growing up in a small market town called Llanidloes right in the heart of Wales, before becoming the headmaster of a primary school in Wimbledon for 29 years. He would mainly play other sports, as well as running various teams and activities across the borough, alongside his life as a husband to Mum and ever-present Dad to my sister and me. There wasn’t much time for golf until I started to take an interest.