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Forewords

 

Page 3

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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