We have in Bert Gadd a magnificent
golfer who is only 24-years-old, big and strongly built, with the collected nerve of a real champion. If he can only have
opportunities he cannot help but become famous. I notice in the
lists of bookmakers which are being broadcast at present he is
quoted at 28 to 1, where two months ago his price was 200 to 1”.
Unfortunately the odds were ultimately stacked against him and
Wheildon’s confident prediction was to be frustrated by events, but
his reputation within the game was high as witnessed by another
extract from the Birmingham Gazette in the fateful year of 1939: -
Memories of Bert Gadd - 12/6/39
“Bert Gadd’s progress at the Penfold League Golf Tournament at
Little Aston this week will be watched with keen interest by many
Birmingham people, for although it is several years since he left
Brand Hall, he has many friends here who still regard him as a
Midlander.
His would be an extremely popular win. This powerfully built young
man – good golfer that he is – has not had the success in major golf
to which his skill entitles him.
His outstanding performance, which will never leave the memory of
those who saw it, was in the (1937) Irish Open, which he won by
coming ‘up from behind’ with a burst of brilliant golf. Bert should
also find inspiration in the fact that he had the pro record at
Little Aston with a round of 66 . . . .”
(Bert’s course record 66, set in the 1935 Midland Open, was
described by the Gazette as “the best display of golf that has been
seen in the Midlands for a long time”) |
Bert Gadd was third in that last Penfold League tournament behind
the joint winners: Henry Cotton and Charles Whitcombe.
In 1928 Bert went to the Shropshire club, Market Drayton as
Pro/Greenkeeper, beginning an association with the club that lasted
for over seventy years. This is what Past President and Captain, Bob
Bayliss wrote after Bert passed away in 2003.
Market Drayton Golf Club is very proud to have been associated with
Bert Gadd. Bert was not only a superb golfer but a true gentleman; a
lovely person held in high esteem by everyone and the game of golf –
and those who play it - are the richer because of his contribution
to it. His name will live on at Market Drayton Golf Club.
Bob Bayliss,
Market Drayton G. C.
2003
|
In 1984 Bert Gadd returned to the game of golf after an eighteen
year break and joined his last club, Ellesmere Port on the Wirral.
He regained his amateur status at the age of seventy-six and played
on until he was nearly ninety years of age, maintaining a single
figure handicap and winning forty competitions. Ken Jones, Ben
Jones, Colin Craggs, Les Collins and all Bert’s friends at the club
held him in high regard.
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