Distance criteria for members of golf clubs - very bad idea

I wanted to advise strongly against the approach taken in Ireland, where members living within 5 miles of their golf club are allowed to play, but not other members. Many golf clubs in Scotland, including all of those in East Lothian for example, have a majority of members who live at a distance from their golf club. For many retired golfers like myself, a golf club subscription is one of the major financial outlays each year. Up to now we have been content to see our (unusable) subscriptions go towards supporting the survival of our clubs. However, the idea that some members who happen to live within some arbitrary distance of the club are able to use the course, but not the rest of us, is inherently divisive and would be deeply frustrating. I have been driving from Edinburgh to Gullane to play golf for about 40 years. I have never once had occasion to interrupt my journey or make use of the emergency services. Any kind of rational risk analysis would indicate that any risk involved is minute in comparison with many others. For example, several cyclists of my acquaintance are cycling up to 30 miles a day on the roads of Edinburgh and the Lothians. Statistically they are much more likely to require emergency help.

For many retired folk like myself, their physical and mental health relies very heavily on playing golf regularly. If permission to resume this activity was to be limited on the basis of some randomly selected distance criterion, in the absence of any scientific evidence or factually-based risk analysis, I think it would be discriminatory, threaten the cohesion of the golfing community, and cause much unnecessary unhappiness and frustration in an already fraught environment.