Golfers blackball ex-Page 3 girl

Raunchy past: Liz Hoad
The Weekender

Sign up to our free weekly newsletter for exclusive competitions, offers and theatre ticket deals

I would like to be emailed about offers, event and updates from Evening Standard. Read our privacy notice.

With a handicap of only eight and a pedigree that includes a spell as a professional and a TV appearance with Peter Alliss, she seemed an ideal prospect for membership of the exclusive Wentworth golf club.

After two promising interviews and a few rounds with committee members, Beth White was accepted as a probationary member and looked forward to earning herself a permanent place among the golfing elite of Surrey.

Then they discovered her past . . . It came to the attention of the board that Miss White was also Liz Hoad, former topless model and sometime femme fatale.

Granted, her non-golfing activities were 20 years ago, but for an institution that boasts of being 'a place where people matter and traditions count', it was just too much.

The warm and welcoming letter she had received acknowledging her £684 payment for a three-month probationary membership was replaced with a short, sharp missive saying she had been blackballed because of a single objection.

'Please would you return your temporary golf bag tag to me,' was the parting shot from deputy general manager Stuart Christie.

'I'm horrified and very, very angry,' said 39-year-old Miss Hoad yesterday.

'There are women members there that can't hit a ball, and male corporate members who behave like yobs. I'm a top lady golfer and I have been booted out because of what happened 20 years ago.'

She believes a jealous ex-partner could be to blame for taking the equivalent of a bunker rake to her past.

As well as topless modelling, Miss Hoad had well-documented affairs in the 1980s with the Queen's cousin Lord Lichfield, golfer Seve Ballesteros and racing driver James Hunt.

'He was my first lover and the best I've ever known,' she has said of Ballesteros, while she claimed that she and Hunt made love wearing earphones because he liked to listen to Meat Loaf. Lord Lichfield, she confided, called her 'Little Muffin' because she was 'his tasty bit of crumpet'.

Not, apparently, the sort of biography that fitted in at Wentworth, whose celebrity regulars include Hugh Grant, Michael Parkinson, Bruce Forsyth and Jimmy Tarbuck.

'We have recently received a letter of objection to your membership,' wrote Mr Christie. 'Having discussed the matter with the board it has been decided to uphold the objection. It is with regret, that I am unable to process your application further.'

Miss Hoad, a sales and marketing manager from Worplesdon, Surrey, used the name of her ex-partner John White, father of her ten-year-old son Greig, for her application. She said: 'I was interviewed twice and they seemed to really like me. My name was up on the board in the club for three weeks and no one objected.

'I played about eight times - the last time with three members of the committee. We got on really well. It wasn't as if I looked like a Page 3 girl. I wore trousers and a jumper up to my neck. I'm very upset that I should be banned because of something that happened 20 years ago. Maybe the women were just jealous.

'They won't give me an official reason but I was told my background was much too raunchy for the fuddy duddies who run Wentworth. Lady members were worried I would be seducing their husbands out on the fairway.'

For those who do make it, membership of Wentworth costs a one-off £6,500, plus a £2,000 annual subscription. Professionals such as Colin Montgomerie and Ernie Els, who live nearby, use it almost as their practice ground.

A spokesman for the club, which is preparing to host top players in the HSBC World Match Play Championships, said: 'I was told to say there is no comment.'

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in