Inception of pioneering Rabbits golf movement commemorated by Knaresborough GC and Oakdale GC

Members of the 24 teams competing in the Knaresborough GC versus Oakdale GC anniversary match. Picture: Submitted

A century after the higher handicappers Rabbits’ golf movement was founded by two North Yorkshire clubs, Knaresborough GC hosted Oakdale in a special commemoration of their pioneering match in October 1922.

Two teams of 12 pairs also marked the opening of a commemorative bridge, completed just in time for the scheduled reunion of the two founding clubs.

Knaresborough GC itself was only two years old when some of its members, frustrated by the absence of team competitions for higher handicappers, invited Oakdale to a match for “players of 18 handicap and over”.

It is the first record of the beginnings of Rabbits Golf, though none exists to explain the origins of the name ‘Rabbits’.

After the centenary match at Knaresborough GC a special mounted glass trophy was presented to the winning team, Knaresborough, by the club’s Men’s Captain, George McVey. The trophy will now be contested annually.

The match result was decided by taking the scores of the top six in the two club’s better ball teams, which saw Knaresborough amass 239 points to Oakdale’s 231.

The teams were led by Richard Allen, Knaresborough’s Rabbits Captain, and Paul Ibbetson, Oakdale’s Rabbits Captain.

The centre-piece of the new bridge, funded jointly by Knaresborough GC and its Rabbits section, is a plaque marking the anniversary of the movement.

“It’s taken a heck of a lot of organising, but the match and the new bridge finally made it all worthwhile, present-day Knaresborough Rabbits secretary, Geoff Fitchett, said.

After the Knaresborough versus Oakdale match in 1922, the appeal of higher handicap club competitions began to spread across the county, with the formation of the West Riding Rabbit Golf Association in 1938. In 1955, that changed to the Yorkshire Rabbit Golf Association.

Today 99 Yorkshire clubs include Rabbits sections, allowing handicappers of 16 and above to play competitive golf across the county.

The movement later took root beyond the county boundary, with the formation of the North East Rabbit Golf Association representing 32 clubs.

In the words of the Yorkshire Rabbit Golf Association, “it was an excellent idea which, in its own way, has created probably the largest ‘golf club’ in the world and one that is

still growing.”