THIEVES got away with thousands of pounds worth of equipment from Farnham Golf Club in The Sands on Sunday in a late-night smash and grab raid. £13,000 worth of golf clubs were stolen from the club's pro shop at around 10-50 pm, by thieves who wrapped chains around the security bars of the shop's front window and used a vehicle to pull the window out. Club professional Graham Cowlishaw, who owns the shop, said that the cost of repairing damage done in the raid could be as much as £10,000. "They pulled out the whole main frontage, really," he said. "They drove onto the patio and then back out over the car parks afterwards. "They took mainly hardware - woods, irons, putters. I have no hope of getting any of it back. "We are probably looking at bricking most of the window in now, and this is a window that is 15 feet by 5 feet, so we will be working in a cave with very little light at all." He added: "People can easily get rid of equipment like that on e-bay these days. Either that, or they do a lot of jobs and container the whole lot out to Europe, or up north somewhere." The golf club shop, on Blighton Lane, has a central station security system, meaning that when the burglar alarm goes off the police are alerted almost straight away. And the police had also been alerted by a neighbour who had heard a lot of noise. The thieves were still able to flee the scene, though, before police arrived. There are also, as yet, no witnesses to the crime. Mr Cowlishaw said this is not the first time the shop has been broken into: "About nine or 10 years ago I was done three times in seven weeks, in a similar way," he said. "We have also had attempted break-ins where they have been disturbed, or they have just broken my doors and not managed to get in."
