Does gorgeous Surrey need golf course No 142?

Can one have too much of a good thing? That old philosophical chestnut has been exercising the High Court this week, with an application to build a new golf course in Surrey being fiercely opposed by environmental groups.

We claim our God-given right as Englishmen to wear silly trousers and try to hit a little white ball into a hole, say the lawyers acting for Longshot Cherkley Court, near Leatherhead, where it is proposing to build an exclusive hotel and spa with a golf course in the grounds. (I paraphrase the legal arguments.)

But there are 141 golf courses in Surrey already, retort the lawyers for the protesters, who include the Surrey Green Party and the Campaign to Protect Rural England. Why can’t you wear your silly trousers on one of those? What’s the point of a 142nd course?

To and fro the debate has raged, and you do not have to have been in court to grasp its essentials. The gulf in comprehension between the golfing classes and those who regard the game with suspicion and loathing is almost as big as that between the shopping classes and those who come out in hives every time a new M&S opens.

As a golf-loving son of Surrey who grew up within a 7-iron of Chipstead Golf Club – a childhood Eden, around which I rambled until I knew every bunker and blade of grass – my loyalties sway like a sapling in the wind.

On the one hand, I am passionately protective of the rolling Surrey countryside, which, thanks to green belt legislation, is some of the most beautiful in Britain – pristine landscapes that have escaped the developer’s bulldozer. On the other, I regard golf with such reverence that any new course anywhere, making the game accessible to more people, is a cause for celebration.

As a way of combining light physical exercise with social interaction, golf is unrivalled: less solitary than jogging, less narcissistic than the gym, less brutish than football, less arcane than cricket.

Are 142 courses too many? If I had my way, there would be pitch-and-putt in every hamlet in the land. In fact, I would probably make golf a GCSE subject.

I acknowledge, in fairness, that the silly-trousers brigade can be their own worst enemies. Anyone who has ever spent time in a clubhouse knows that golfers are among the biggest bores in the world, congenitally incapable of cutting short the story of how they nearly got a birdie at the seventh after splashing out of a greenside bunker.

At the higher echelons of the game, the continuing refusal of the Royal and Ancient, the governing body, to admit women members is an embarrassment.

But the point about golfers, by and large, is that they are benign bores. They pay their taxes, obey the laws of the land and treat other people with courtesy and respect. To the best of my knowledge, there has never been a murder committed by a golfer of either sex during a round.

When some hothead has started a riot or thrown a brick through the window of an off-licence, where is the last place the police go looking for suspects? Exactly. The 19th hole of the local golf club. Silly trousers aside, golfers are as harmless as ramblers and cyclists and dog-walkers and all the other groups with whom they share the countryside.

The question “How many golf courses can one county accommodate?” is as meaningless, philosophically, as the question “How many Chinese restaurants can one city accommodate?” But the fact that the row is taking place in Surrey gives it added significance.

If someone were planning a new golf course in the Lake District, or the centre of Bath, or opposite the Houses of Parliament, I would be the first to object. But golf and Surrey go together like niblicks and plus-fours, blazers and pink gins, pot bunkers and hanging lies, Peter Alliss and Henry Longhurst.

The game might have originated in Scotland, and links golf may be the oldest, purest form of the game, but there is something about leafy Surrey, with its gentle hills and mature trees, which makes it the near-perfect habitat for golfers, whether they are low-handicap players or weekend hackers.

Some of the finest courses in Europe, including Wentworth and Walton Heath, are to be found in the county. Even the most nondescript public courses have their own quiet charm.

As you hack your way around, zigzagging from one side of the fairway to the other, stopping to admire the silver birches or chat with your fellow players, you feel part of a wider community, relaxing in the Surrey sun, the stresses of London a world away.

The world won’t come to an end if the objectors have their way and the guests at the new hotel at Cherkley Court have to content themselves with playing Scrabble in the conservatory. But it will be a sad day when Surrey’s enduring love affair with golf ends up in the rough.