A Good Walk Unspoiled

The ninth green, with Kew Botanic Gardens in the background, on the Outer Course at Royal Mid-Surrey Stephen Munday, Getty Images

Royal Mid-Surrey, one of the most exclusive London golf clubs, introduced a new category of membership in 2020. Cost? A charitable donation of £20. The only catch is that the arrangement ceases the moment lockdown is over. As things stand at the moment, that will be 29 March.

In what was the collective brainchild of the RMS committee, the new category is a “walking membership,” one which permits access to the course every day of the week between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m.

There are, of course, any number of courses in the UK crisscrossed by public rights of way and where no one pays a thing. Indeed, the public have the Old Course at St Andrews to themselves on Sundays, other than on the last day of an Open Championship, Dunhill Links or some major amateur event.

Hanging the Laundry out to Dry, by Berthe Morisot, 1875 National Gallery of Art, Washington, D. C.

In days of old, the locals could also take...