WARREN CLARK GOLFING DREAMS!

It doesn’t take much persuasion to get me to go to a golf club, if only there were more hours in the day!

I therefore greatly enjoyed visiting Horne Park Golf Club where Suzanne and I had the pleasure of meeting Warren Clark and his mum Dawn. Warren has autism, learning difficulties and a curvature of the spine but despite these challenges has set up a charity, Warren Clark Golfing Dreams to help people like himself. He has demonstrated how adversity can be overcome when in 2019 at the Special Olympics he won a gold medal in golf.

The charity delivers Starting New at Golf (SNAG) and Tri-Golf sessions to disabled and disadvantaged individuals and groups and aims to make a difference to the lives of participants, encouraging them to be socially active and challenge themselves.

They have now received full planning permission to build an inclusive centre which will provide an accessible community/sports hall, training kitchen, changing room facility, sensory room, quiet/prayer room and will offer inclusive community events and training in golf, multi-sports, bar and catering, retail, front of house and groundsman duties. It will also offer health and well-being facilities. Fund-raising is now underway to enable construction to begin and when completed the centre will provide opportunities for disabled and disadvantaged people to learn skills and attain qualifications to help find employment.

I was also able to demonstrate my less than impressive golfing skills in their golf simulator, in front of the Chair of Tandridge Council, Mike Crane, who was also in attendance and is a strong supporter of the charity.