I know a few of us recieve Martin Voudsen's Scottish Golf Newsletter , so I am surprised no one has posted on his mentioning of the closure of his home course Letham Grange .
Letham Grange has always had a troubled existence .The original 18 hole "Old Course" was designed by an Commodities Trader called Ken Green who did most of the design and routing of the course himself . Donald Steel lists Letham Grange on his website and I am led to believe he was called in to design the greens . Unfortunately Mr Green ran out of money before the course was finished , and it has gone through several owners since then.
I remember playing Letham Grange with friends on the year it opened in 1987 , and it seemed to introduce a different type of golf than what we had grown up with . It was as big a course as I had seen up to then , almost 7000 yards from the back tees . We all moaned about sore legs afterwards , mostly down to long walks between tees . The next time we played it we hired "Buggys" , another novelty to us (and we didn't enjoy it ) .
The golf we were told was more American than Scottish , this I think was due to the amount of water used on the course , again which was quite new to us . Still there was enough Scottishness in the course to keep me happy and the middle stretch of holes I have always thought were fantastic.
Over the years there has been quite a lot of changes to the "Old Course" , the last three holes were changed totally to allow more housing . Compared to how it was , the finish is pretty horrible nowadays , in my opinion .
There had been rumours of the courses demise for the last year or so , and I took a trip down to Letham Grange last Sept . taking my camera just in case it did disappear . We found a course in pretty bad condition , it was definitely "fast and firm" as there was very little grass on tees or fairways . The clubhouse had been closed already and we paid our green fee at makeshift desk set up inside the doorway . And what surprised me the most was , here was a club in financial difficulty yet they were asking £35 for a midweek round . Considering how many decent courses there are in the nearby area which are all under £20 , why were they charging so much ? . We never saw another golfer the rest of the day .
Someone mentioned to me yesterday , that the course is offically closed , but the Head Greenkeeper and an Assistant were maintaining the course and asking for donations from golfers as a green fee .
To be honest , I would doubt if Letham Grange disappears totally , but just in case I will add some pics. from last year .
As usual James Finegan has a nice review of Letham Grange in "Blasted Heaths and Blessed Greens" .
Brian
The 1st hole
When the last owner , who was Taiwanese , bought the course , one of the first things he did was add "Feng Shui" to the course , adding a lot of stones around greens all aligned properly ! .
The 2nd hole
The 3rd green
The par 3 5th . I was dismayed the first time I saw these metal barriers across the water hazards.
The par 3 8th hole
The par 5 ninth was probably my favourite hole on the course . The dogleg right , tee shot had to be correct to set up the dog leg left shot down to the green .
The par 4 , 10th .
This is the 10th green . What would you make of a green being propped up by sand bags ? .
The approach to the 11th green.
The lovely downhill par 3 12th .
Green of the par 4 13th
The par 5 14th I have always found a little controversial . Can trees really be used as a hazard like this ? .
The par 3 15th . The problem with adding houses around the course , meant more access roads were built , some like this one are ridiculous . I had a friend who just missed the green left , ball took a huge hop left , bounced on the road and ended up 50 yards away with no recovery shot .
The fairway of the par 4 18th .