‘The majority of golf courses survived two world wars – they can see off coronavirus’

I originally researched and wrote this piece in November 2019. None of us had any idea of what was lurking around the corner in the form of the dreadful virus currently dictating the way we’re all having to live our lives.  The effect of the virus on golf clubs all over the country cannot be overemphasised and its timing could not be worse.

We have had probably the worst winter in living memory with excessive rainfall resulting in prolonged closures leaving many people questioning whether they could justify the cost of membership.

Now, just at the time when most clubs are asking for annual subscriptions we are hit with another prolonged spell – at least six weeks at the time of writing – without being able to play our beloved sport.  This is causing anxiety in the boardrooms of many clubs with them having to juggle finances in the face of potentially many resignations.

As far as I’m aware, no clubs have actually closed permanently since the outbreak although I’m sure there will be more than a few in the aftermath. (Ed’s note: Stapleford Park closed its golf course recently but for more complex reasons than the coronavirus crisis.)

As we have no way of knowing the outcome I have left the remainder of this piece as it was originally written and am taking comfort in the knowledge that our sport has survived more difficult times than this – namely two world wars – and has come out stronger on the other side.

We are frequently reading stories in the media, both golf and mainstream, about how our sport is dying a painful and lingering death.

Headlines report hundreds of courses closing throughout Britain amid a scene of dwindling numbers and deserted fairways.

Now, as someone who spent 14 years playing every 18-hole course in my native Yorkshire, I play a lot of golf on different courses and I’m certainly not seeing the above picture at most of the places I turn up at. That being the case, I decided to look into the situation in more detail.

Since the Second World War until the early 1980s, the UK saw a slow but steady growth with maybe a couple of dozen new courses arriving on the golfing scene. Yes, the odd course closed here and there – but this was usually due to new road schemes or urban spread.

During the ’80s and ’90s, however, the country saw a prolonged period of economic boom during which many – particularly younger – people had much more disposable income than ever before.

Golf was seen by many as an appropriate outlet for this new-found wealth.  This boom was compounded in the second half of the 90s due to the ‘Tiger Effect’ meaning, for the first time, golf had street cred.

Because of this massive increase in participants, traditional clubs were struggling to cope with the number of people requiring membership and many – if not most – had waiting lists.

More courses were the obvious answer and indeed between 1980 and 2000 several hundred new courses appeared throughout the country.

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Many of these were well funded, well designed and well supported – and a great number of them continue to thrive.

Others, however, were opened by farmers and landowners who just wanted to cash in on the boom. Often these were poorly designed and cheaply constructed with at best poor – and at worst non-existent –drainage and landscaping.

Sometimes these were designed by the landowners themselves, many of whom had little golf knowledge.

Now, as a layman I do not have access to industry figures but conventional wisdom held that in 1980 there were roughly 1,200 full-size courses in the UK and Ireland and by 2000 this figure had significantly increased to somewhere approaching 1,800.

From the early 2000s onwards, many of these new golfers began to re-evaluate.

Some left the game due to downturns in their economic situations and changes in social expectations. Others fell out with the game at least in part due to the poor quality of the courses they’d been playing.

Equally, many fell in love with their new sport and began to gravitate towards traditional members’ clubs which, by then, had begun to have vacancies again. This is when we started to see course closures.

As of November 2019, we had, according to my research, lost 158 golf courses in the UK and Ireland since 2000.

This still leaves us with a far greater number than at the start of the boom in 1980.

I am not suggesting that the closures have stopped by any means but let’s look though at the actual courses that had closed prior to the coronavirus pandemic.

Of these 158 courses, 123 had opened after 1980. This leaves only 35 closed courses in existence prior to the start of the boom.

Eleven of these were 9-hole courses and a further seven were municipal.

In summary, therefore, only 17 private 18-hole courses had closed since the turn of the century. Sadly, on a personal level, one of them was South Leeds where I spent 25 happy years as a member from 1976.

While not trying to hide the fact that many courses have closed and continue to do so, we should take comfort that as a result of these closures we are left with courses of a generally higher quality than prior to 1980.

We should also see this as a levelling-out of participants to those of the pre-boom era rather than the doom-laden picture often painted in the media.

Private 18-hole courses to have closed since 2000

Blairbeth (opened 1910)
Criccieth (1905)
Eastwood (1891)
Herne Bay (1889)
Keele (1975)
Laleham (1938)
Lothianburn (1893)
North Worcestershire (1900s)
Potters Bar (1923)
Purley Chase (1978)
Redhill & Reigate (1887)
Sandilands (1952)
South Leeds (1900s)
Stapleford Park (2000)
Torphin Hill (1895)
West Bowling (1898)
Woodlands Manor (1929)

Do you agree with Mark? Has he missed any courses that have closed? How is your club doing during the coronavirus crisis? Let us know below or tweet us.

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