The club might be within their rights to define a dress policy but that is not the issue - what they have interpreted is different to what they have defined.

If they wish to plainly ban kilted golfing and risk the ire and opprobrium and bad publicity then they should say so.

When one has read the rules as stated one is entitled, member or not, to be somewhat surprised that there are additional unstated exclusions. This has led to major inconvenience for a visitor besides his experiencing a discourteous attitude in the way it was handled.

We have seen the effect that adverse publicity has had on other plain daft rulings - this club deserves all that it gets.