Simon
The clubs are just doing what the (US owned) high end pay and play courses were doing and for the same reason ie. to maximise revenue. There's been no change in that from what I can see.
On the Braid thread I think it was you who posted a link to youtuber at Perranporth going round the course with the head greenkeeper, the club manager, a golf consultant and the retained gca. It was fascinating to watch the dynamics. The head greenkeeper was focused on what could be done to make his job easier and the club manager was the one making all the suggestions as to what should be done to make the course "better". The gca seemed to me to be largely just taking note and advising how the changes could be accomplished. The point of the golf consultant, as far as I could tell, was to sell the club managers proposed changes to the members. It struck me that if the members were the ones instigating the changes then there would be no need for the golf consultant.
How that dynamic compares to Brora, I really don't know but I do suspect that the interests of the club manager (more revenue), head greenkeeper (making his job easier) and the members (better playing surfaces) are fully aligned in wanting to remove the livestock.
Niall
Hi Niall
On the first point there is a nuance here, as the local vs. non-local distinction started back on the opening of Loch Lomond (in 1993) at the virtual insistance of the SGU, in order for some limited access to Scottish non-members. The PR of course was to allow LL to get SGU and other higher events for its desired standing. At one point these SGU times were limited to only 12 golfers a day and there was a lottery for SGU members.
The repeat of this "requirement" at places like Kingsbarns, Castle Stuart, Dumbarnie, Renaissance etc. does not maximise their revenue, as they can fill their busy tee-sheet very easily with higher non-local (including those resident in GB&I, but not in Scotland) fees in their shorter playing seasons. It's a cost of doing business with the local governing body (acting obh of golfers locally)
The irony is that the distinction (and considerable £ difference in fees) has now been flipped at other venues which were always open to (non-local) visitors, but as a way of increasing/exploiting revenue from those same visitors. There will be another cycle where these visitors may stop coming (as economic cycles recur, and unpredictable geopolitical events happen) and these clubs may really struggle if this source (& quantum) of revenue has been embedded into overhead and running costs.
Such "windfalls" should be carefully stewarded as such, to build reserves and/or invest in projects that
lower on-going costs.
Sadly seeing too many "vanity" projects that don't do either (wide grass irrigated paths, over-specified fancy pastiche bunker rebuilds etc.) and these sometimes damage the course architecture and aesthetic.
To get back onto the thread topic (but, without re-opening the argument which has already been lost, by dint of the members) the Course Manager claims they can maintain the roughs as well as the sheep (and his testing areas have shown this)...but what is the embedded on-going cost for scaling this up across an entire course/site? I trust this key point of information was shared with the membership...