The chief executive of the UK Golf Federation has said that golf participation in the UK would be boosted if British Summer Time (BST) was adopted for the whole 12 months of the year.
Doug Poole’s comments come as the Council of the European Union and the European Parliament have supported a proposal to end seasonal time changes by 2021, while still leaving member states the freedom to decide their standard time. This comes after a poll of nearly five million people found 84 per cent of citizens in the EU were in favour of discontinuing biannual clock changes.
“Maybe a hot potato that could help simulate golf participation,” he said.
“Further to this decision taken by the European Parliament, it raises the question of its impact on golf participation and is no doubt relevant to participation in sport in general and also leisure activity in the UK as a whole.
“As operators of golf facilities, the UK Golf Federation, who focus on open access to golf, would see some really good reasons for supporting keeping BST all year round.
“The extra one hour a day during the winter months would help simulate all areas of participation, plus fitness and health and prove environmentally acceptable as driving ranges would be using less power, savings in cost could be as high as £2,000 per quarter, this is a lot of units!
“While there is a long way to go on any final decision, it would seem clear that keeping BST could help our aims of growing golf participation and also saving valuable resources of energy.”
Poole called for sport’s governing bodies to investigate this further, and for the All-Party Parliamentary Golf Group to get behind it – even though the government has so far suggested it is not willing to change the current make-up.
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