“Golf in Gloucestershire is very, very strong at the moment.”

So says Dereck Buttler, who is well qualified to make a judgement because he’s been playing the game for 40 years.

He also just happens to be the president of the Gloucestershire Golf Union, a position he took up in March.

But while the 74-year-old, who is a member at Broadway Golf Club, loves everything about the game and is happy to champion everything that is good about it, it wasn’t his first sporting love.

“I used to play cricket for Ashton-under-Hill,” he said. “I was a seam bowler, I took up golf when I finished playing cricket.

“I went to Cleeve Hill with Richard Keen, a friend of mine, we basically taught ourselves how to play.

“I became a member at Broadway after waiting four years to get into the club. At that time there was a strict waiting list but once I was in I haven’t looked back, I’ve enjoyed my golf.”

At his best he played off eight and these days his handicap index is still a very respectable 12.8.

“I generally play off 14,” he said, which is slightly lower than his long-time partner Pat Righton, who has a handicap index of 19.6.

The couple met through golf and have been together for more than 30 years and Dereck said: “We’ve had some really good times playing golf, we’ve made some really good friends on and off the course.

“We used to play together all the time, we entered every mixed competition that was going.”

So who was the stronger player?

“We were a partnership,” laughed Dereck. “Pat used to play off 15, she still has good days now when she plays some phenomenal golf.”

Pat, who is also a member at Broadway, is now over 80 but, like Dereck, remains very involved in the sport both as a player and as an administrator.

Dereck’s first involvement on the administrative side came in 1995 when he was elected onto the general committee at Broadway.

He spent seven years on the committee and said: “The reason I got involved was because I'd had so much enjoyment playing golf, I wanted to give something back.”

And he certainly has given plenty back over the years, serving as captain at Broadway in 2011 and becoming the club’s county representative a year later.

In 2014 he was elected onto the executive committee of the Gloucestershire Golf Union and was the county’s championship chairman for six years, which saw him looking after all the county's tournaments.

He describes his current job of president as “an ambassadorial role for the county of Gloucestershire,” adding, “I’m a figurehead, I’m very proud to hold the position, absolutely.”

Dereck is also a qualified golf referee and is able to officiate at county level.

“I refereed at the English County Finals in 2018 and 2022,” he said with understandable pride.

As you’d expect, Dereck has an encyclopaedic knowledge about the Rules of Golf but he admits that wasn’t always the case.

“I was on the Broadway team that competed in the R&A Rules of Golf quiz,” he said. “The club had won it in 1995 and in 2004 we were within one question of going to St Andrew’s again, it was me who got the question wrong.”

So what was the question?

“What’s the penalty if you drive a ball out of bounds? I said two and the answer is one,” he said. “After that I studied the Rules more and more and that’s when I decided to become a referee.”

It’s obvious that Dereck gives a lot to golf but happily he still finds time to play. When he spoke to The Local Answer he had just returned from a golf trip to northern France, representing the Gloucestershire Golf Captains Association.

“There are 40 clubs in Gloucestershire and any male who has captained a club is invited to join,” he said. “I was lucky enough to be their captain last year.”

And while Dereck is justifiably proud of everything he has done in the game, he is just as proud to see golf in Gloucestershire thriving.

“In 2018 the men’s team reached the English County Finals,” he said. “In 2021 we won it and last year we came within half a point of winning it again.

“And the ladies have been equally as strong, if not stronger. They’ve reached the County Finals nine years out of 10 and won it three times out of four to become English Ladies County Champions in 2016, 2018 and 2019. They were second to Yorkshire by one point in 2017.” 

Pat Righton has been, and continues to be, a big supporter of ladies’ golf in Gloucestershire.

“She got involved with the Gloucestershire Ladies’ County Golf Association (GLCGA) in 2002 when she was Broadway’s county representative,” said Dereck, who lives with Pat in Moreton-in-Marsh.

“She was asked to become chairman of the GLCGA in 2010, a role she fulfilled for three years, and these days she’s competition secretary for the County Ladies’ Veterans. She runs their competitions, she lives on the computer!”

She was also in the aforementioned Rules of Golf quiz team that missed out on that place at St Andrew’s in 2004, with Dereck adding with a laugh: “I don’t think she or the rest of the team held it against me!”