Oldest Member (character)
fictional character: the narrator in some of P.G. Wodehouse's ‘Golf’ stories
The Oldest Member (of a golf club with varying names) is a fictional character from the short stories of P. G. Wodehouse. The character debuted in the 1919 short story "the Clicking of Cuthbert", and narrates the majority of Wodehouse's golf stories from the terrace of a golf club whose location is unclear. The location and name of the club change between the stories, and between the US and UK versions of some of the stories.
The club's members enjoy having drinks in the clubhouse after a brisk eighteen holes; but they do so fully aware of the risk that the Oldest Member who, (though he has long since given up golf) has seen all and knows all, might pick up on their conversation and begin to relate a story from his experience. Though some listeners are happy (or at least not unhappy) to hear the Oldest Member's tales, these stories are sometimes told to characters who are eager to leave before the story has even started, and who occasionally fall asleep before or after the story has started. Once he has started talking, The Oldest Member cannot be stopped, and, when necessary, he will grab the arms and clothing of his unwilling audience to keep them in their seats.
Inspiration
One of the club's names, Manhooset, may be a reference to Manhasset Bay in Long Island, New York. According to Wodehouse scholar N. T. P. Murphy, Wodehouse played golf at the Sound View Golf Club, which used to exist in Long Island, New York, and used it as the basis for the Oldest Member's club. Sound View is referenced in the Wodehouse 1966 short story "Life with Freddie". Wodehouse also played at the Walton Heath and Addington courses in the UK. Addington is mentioned in Wodehouse's preface to The Heart of a Goof and the course's original club house which burnt down in 1938.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 18, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7085573. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1919, 1966 and 1938.
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This entry incorporates text from “Oldest Member (character)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.