Camperdown to close?

[Brian_Ewen]

And now Letham Grange?
https://www.thecourier.co.uk/fp/news/local/angus-mearns/971962/fresh-blow-for-golf-in-angus-and-tayside-as-acclaimed-club-to-close/

From what I heard from a local pro. today, another popular club in Angus has financial difficulties.

[Robin_Hiseman]

And now Letham Grange?
https://www.thecourier.co.uk/fp/news/local/angus-mearns/971962/fresh-blow-for-golf-in-angus-and-tayside-as-acclaimed-club-to-close/

It's hardly a surprise, but i'm still bloody sad about it. I was a member at Letham Grange for a couple of years and really enjoyed it. There are a handful of really good holes on the main course and collectively it is a sound piece of architecture. I will miss having it around, even though I've not had the opportunity to play there in a long while. I'm considering jumping on a plane for one last game before the shutters come down.


The second course won't be mourned in the same way, although it did annexe a couple of the original holes in the forest which are very pretty.


Scottish golf is going to hell in a hand cart. This current spate of closures is the tip of the iceberg. I know of several high profile courses around Glasgow which are hanging on by a thread. When formerly prestigious clubs resort to Footgolf to bring in a few bucks you know the event horizon has been crossed.

[Adrian_Stiff]

Unsustainable then. Golf courses must close if they cost too much too maintain versus the income received, that does not matter if the income is made of 30000 multiplied by A or 15000 multiplied by 2A.


99% of most business closures are because of lack of money.


The Scottish people have been educated into very cheap golf and is now reaping what was sown as the younger ones are more interested in other things and the older ones are dying, had they paid more there would be an easier cushion, as soon as you charge ratshit money you have to increase your volumes to get to the same position.


Still amounts to what I said. If people paid more (the correct price) Scotland would not be in the shit, after all your minimum wage is the same as the rest of the UK. A lot of a golf course run cost is labour.

[Brian_Ewen]

It's hardly a surprise, but i'm still bloody sad about it. I was a member at Letham Grange for a couple of years and really enjoyed it. There are a handful of really good holes on the main course and collectively it is a sound piece of architecture.

More than a handful for me Robin.


Yet, I often think this was where it all started .... We were still playing Persimmon etc. when Letham Grange opened, and I could not get over how long it was.


But a couple of years later, those wonderful Americans were selling us clubs and balls for courses just like this, and suddenly playing golf was hardly affordable for all, as it had been for decades.


IMHO

[Robin_Hiseman]

Here's the link to the Peter Alliss 'Play Better Golf' series filmed at Letham Grange. I remember this going out at the time.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UD0xN6WLDoc

[Kalen Braley]

I still wonder if the decline is mostly attributable to green fees.... or other causes.


Like the opportunity costs of other "new" entertainment, like Mobile phone activities, Internet, Console Games, Cable TV, etc.  In addition to spouses finding it harder to get hours and hours of free time, increased work responsibility, family obligations, etc. Just seems like there are so many other things pulling at the average golfer, as opposed to just one course being a few pounds cheaper than another...

[Thomas Dai]

Looking at this from a wider "not-just-golf" perspective, has something somehow changed within sports and pastimes generally in Scotland over the last few decades?
I ask this because sports and pastimes in which Scotland traditionally produced excellent individual participants, soccer, rugby union, motor racing being good examples, no longer seem to produce players or groups/generations of participants of the calibre of even a few decades ago. I'm sure there are individual exceptions but in general there seems to be less Scottish involvement at the highest levels of sporting achievement than there once was.
atb

[Bernie Bell]

Bit of a stretch to pin the closure of a Scottish course that is 32 years old on the "wonderful Americans," no?   



"But a couple of years later, those wonderful Americans were selling us clubs and balls for courses just like this, and suddenly playing golf was hardly affordable for all, as it had been for decades."

[Niall C]

Robin


I too remember Letham Grange as having some good golf although I only played it twice. I can also guess at some of the clubs you refer to in Glasgow.


Adrian


I think you are wrong - Scots weren't weened on cheap golf but instead have been allured by cheaper golf. The irony is that it is the clubs themselves who have done it by making it possible for the average golfer being able to play as much golf as a non-member of a club as an average member does, by reducing visitor fees to silly levels. That's just reducing the value of being a member and eroding your core income which is members subs.


The SGU haven't helped matters by promoting a system that helps non-members book rounds. What they should be doing is promoting a system that rewards members by giving them reduced visitor rates elsewhere. I understand that's what the Kiwi's do.


Niall

[Brian_Ewen]

Bit of a stretch to pin the closure of a Scottish course that is 32 years old on the "wonderful Americans," no?   

"But a couple of years later, those wonderful Americans were selling us clubs and balls for courses just like this, and suddenly playing golf was hardly affordable for all, as it had been for decades."

Which of course, never did.

[Brian_Ewen]

Looking at this from a wider "not-just-golf" perspective, has something somehow changed within sports and pastimes generally in Scotland over the last few decades?

Certainly been a shift in the sports played in the small town where I live.


It was always about the Golf Club with its long waiting list, and the Lawn Bowling Club, which had two greens and busy most days during the summer.


2019, the Golf Club is struggling and the Bowling Club is down to one green.


Yet, the once dead Tennis Courts are busy, plus we now have a Cycling Club and the roads are full of Cyclists.

[Brian_Ewen]

@michaeljmarra
The decline of Dundee’s beautiful Camperdown Park since the SNP pushed through the closure of the municipal golf course is a tragedy. Seeing this on a beautiful New Year’s Day is a grim reminder of the cuts they are making to all our services.

[Brian_Ewen]

"The proposed reopening of the golf course at Camperdown Park in Dundee has been delayed until at least 2023, The Courier can reveal.

It was initially hoped the once-popular facility, which was controversially shut by Dundee City Council in April 2020, would reopen in spring this year.

But the firm leading the project says both damage to the greens and complications caused by Covid-19 have knocked the rebirth of the site back.

It is understood this will delay the proposals until at least next year.

However, Amity Hospitality says it is still “fully committed” to transforming the site into a refreshed nine-hole course with a state-of-the-art driving range"

https://www.thecourier.co.uk/fp/news/dundee/3059472/dundee-camperdown-golf-course-reopening-2023/