I've just learned that our local club has closed after ninety four years.
I recall back in the 80s there was a minimum two year waiting list for memeberships.
Is golf on its arse?
It's been on it's arse for years.
Golf is the old cycling.
I live in South Essex and we *really* struggle to get tee times unless book 2+ weeks ahead.
Most courses we use are pay and play but I have heard from friends who are members that their clubs are hugely busy too.
Could it be location / population density where you are? That said we have umpteen courses and they are all busy, even this crap ones.
It's a change in society that's killed it.
It takes 5+ hours to play a round of golf which is effectively a whole day.
30 years ago it was quite normal for a man with a family to habitually piss off for the entire day at the weekend and leave the wife and kids to their own devices. Not so much these days.
In order to justify the cost of a membership you need to play regularly enough that it takes up a significant chunk of your time and these days people are just time poor.
I played at the weekend though. 3 times. I was on holiday though.
This course is in Salford which is populous.
I used to play a municipal course in a town called Little Hulton which is really rough. Think 24 grit.
Ground under repair was typically grass ripped up by a trials bike and hazards a burnt out MKII Fiesta. A copy of which you'd normally find at the seventh.
Where I live on Ayrshire coast, there's more golf courses than public loos, and most of them are struggling, for many reasons. Not many still have joining fees, or waiting lists.
Takes too long
loads of pensioners on reduced rates don't support the clubs (and adds to point 1^)
Drink driving laws have had massive effect on bar takings
it's still viewed as elitist
it's still viewed as sexist
da yoot are no longer as into it
it's still viewed as being expensive (which it isn't really)
Also, tougher drink drive laws.
Almost all golf courses* are too far away from where people live to walk and everyone loves a pint after a round. The days of having a few in the clubhouse, throwing your clubs in the boot of your Merc and driving home are long gone. Thankfully.
Still happens though. If you want to see drink driving in the modern age then the road outside any golf club would be the place to look.
*Not my local one though. It's on the actual Main Street, a five iron away from the taxi rank and the kebab shop. They make way more money through the bar than they do through the actual fees.
Just took it back up after 10 year absence. First round I had to get up and down from a greenside bunker to break 100, which was a sobering exp.
Anyhow course is literally behind my house and now 2 months later I'm back to shooting in the mid 70s, which is pretty much where I was all those years ago.
But to answer the question..my course is always rammed.
If you think about it, golf courses take up an incredible amount of desirable land and upkeep for a very small amount of people to use at any one time.
It should cost more than it does and the price is already expensive for what it is.
Golf is simply a poor commercial proposition these days. A staggeringly inefficient use of resources.
I like a game of golf but don't actually play much. Takes too much time, is too arsey about rules and costs a lot for what it is.
I'm happy that it's not working as a sport as it may push courses to use their land for other outdoor sports.
I do hope none of them close locally though, I don't play any more, but love a sunrise or sunset over a links course, proper braw. They're great for quiet running too, when it's wet, as the good old duffers of Old Prestwick and Royal Troon don't go out in the rain, so I have them to myself.
Where I live on Ayrshire coast, there’s more golf courses than public loos
There's more golf courses than public loos in central London 🙁
If you want to see drink driving in the modern age then the road outside any golf club would be the place to look
The road outside any country pub is a good place to look tbf.
My mum and her chums are hovering over the BRS app as dates get released because that's apparently the only way to get a round so her club's busy enough it seems.
Drink driving would not be wise at the one I mentioned in my OP.
The driveway leads straight onto the A580.
Ex GF's dad used to have about four pints of bitter before chucking his clubs into the boot of his
900 turbo T16S and spitting up gravel. He lived less than a mile from the club.
@boombang I used to play Sth Essex courses!
I liked playing golf but I got fed up with the archaic dress rules, I haven't played for about 5 years now and miss it.
I like to wear shorts when playing but I got turned away from so many courses that I got fed up with it. The last straw for me was when I was walking to the first tee at a course that I had to wear long trousers to play, and the club pro ran out of the shop and was shouting at me to tuck my shirt in to my trousers. I walked back to the car park and that was it. It's that middle class pseudo public school atmosphere that I can't stand, even on some of the shabbier courses. Shame really as where I now live there is an interesting course over the road (9 holes built on top of an old Victorian dock) that I'd like to play, it's full of old retired people though so I can't see the attitude being any different. I think they're trying to sign up new members as well.
I’m happy that it’s not working as a sport as it may push courses to use their land for other outdoor sports.
Very geographically dependent, there is no shortage of land around here, and nothing that I can think of that would be looking to use the land that the courses take up?.
Even the FT agrees:
Cycling beats golf in the new world of networking
https://www.ft.com/content/98eb4072-7a98-11e6-ae24-f193b105145e
The number of golf players in the US has dropped by 20 per cent in the past decade while in England numbers have fallen 29 per cent since 2008. But if the green no longer cuts it, where should business people swap business cards?
I think top of the league for linky golf courses has to be Fife, at least trumpy doesn't have one unlike Ayrshire
I've often thought that they should split golf courses into 3 sets of 6 holes for most of the week and only use the whole 18 for competitions.
That way you could go and play for 90 mins without pissing off everybody else on the course and instantly treble the capacity for tee off times.
6 holes is plenty. If you want to play 12 or 18 then book two or three tee times.
It’s that middle class pseudo public school atmosphere that I can’t stand,
I think that's a predominantly English / American thing.
Go to any normal Scottish golf course and the car park will have more works vans in it than executive German saloons. It's very much a working mans game up here.
There are obvious exceptions to that though.
Commercial driving ranges (certainly down south near urban areas) probably stole a lot of the younger generation trade and corporate team lunch/evening trade.
Would never catch me walking round a golf course, but I'd go along to a company dinner social event if it was a driving range, 10-pin, etc. (but not paint ball etc. - no interest in that).
My local one back home shut but only ever went there for pitch and putt as a kid. interestingly the bowls centre on site apparently remained operational, which I'd have thought was even less popular, but I imagine that's a gonner too now. Now it's a fight between returning it to nature or building 1000 houses.
Would never catch me walking round a golf course
You must walk really fast.
It’s very much a working mans game up here.
This.
I used to work with guys who were members of Turnberry*, they were on a fairly average wage.
*Pre Trump.
Lots have changed in 10 years since I quit. Now everyone wears shorts, and it's 'ready golf' to speed things up. Not that that helps when you have 4 duffers in front of you who think their Sunday 4 ball is the final round of the US masters.
*Pre Trump.
Which is a pity because they are both great courses.
I got food poisoning from a tomato and mozzerella salad there once*.
*also Pre Trump**
**Donald, not Trouser. I nearly shat my pants on the way home round about Loudon Hill
50/50 split in my group of friends between those who cycle and those who golf. Safe to say the larger members of the group are those on the golf course.
I know most of the clubs round here are busy, though I do run across one course quite regularly that always seems quite.
I had shooting rights at two very prestigious clubs in Greater Manchester.
It was great
My visits were obviously timed for when golfers were not there!
Golf is the old cycling.
this I think
All the 40+ blokes (mostly blokes, still) who used to move into golf when the kids are old enough to look after themselves are now [road] cycling. In massive packs
It's cyclical though. Give it a few years, cycling will be down again, and golf will be back up
**Donald, not Trouser. I nearly shat my pants on the way home round about Loudon Hill
As good a place to shite as anywhere tbh.
a fitter I used to work with shat himself on the Kintyre course, the wee hole you play down to the beach, canny mind the number. He had fawn chinos on, he became known as 'Bonanza pants' thereafter, as his trew resembled the map burning during the titles of said tv show. 🙂
the wee hole you play down to the beach, canny mind the number.
The 8th. I'm currently looking at a photograph on the sideboard of myself putting on that green wearing some decidedly 80's golf shoes with those leather tasselly flap things over the laces.
I had shooting rights at two very prestigious clubs in Greater Manchester.
It was great
My visits were obviously timed for when golfers were not there!
Are you sure about the last bit - because it would explain the fall in numbers...
tried golf a few times, ball is too small, hole is too far away and the stick is a ridiculous shape to be of any use whatsoever. Utter waste of time and best way to spoil a nice walk. IMO obvs.
One memorable shooting foray saw me leaving my lay-up spot to bid good morning to the pilot of a hot air balloon that was drifting over the course. "Good morning to you too." It was quite surreal.
Another memory I have is of switching off seven magpies in about twenty seconds from a hide 60 yards away. That too was quite surreal.
Another memory I have is of switching off seven magpies in about twenty seconds from a hide 60 yards away.
I'd be more impressed if you did it with a lob wedge.
Lots of clubs are being propped up by elderly members who don't play any more but use it as a social club. It can take a really long time for unviable ones to close though, plenty have lots of cash in the bank and owners that don't really care about big profits as land value keeps going up and up.
My nearest public golf course was closed in 2016 and is massively better now as a public park. https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2019/jul/19/beckenham-place-park-lewisham-london-lake-woods-rewilding (good little pump track too)
tried golf a few times, ball is too small, hole is too far away and the stick is a ridiculous shape to be of any use whatsoever. Utter waste of time and best way to spoil a nice walk. IMO obvs.
Ha ha. I agree.
There are two Sports that I ruined for myself by good fortune. Surfing, I've only been 4/5 times, but every time with an instructor and around the quiet, nicer beaches around Syndey, when I came home to Wales I just couldn't bring myself to squeeze into a 7mm Wetsuit and try to surf the ripples of the Gowers side stepping turds and tampons as I went. I doff my Cap to UK surfers, you've got to really love it, I don't think it was a Sport designed to work here.
The other ways Golf, before I found MTB I was trying to find a new hobby to keep me off the pills and out of the clubs. I went to a range a few times, I was like Happy Gilmore, without the aim, I sort of got the gist and my old Boss treated me to a round at his club as a reward for something or other, he pays as Celtic Manor, I think I managed 9 Holes, threw up on a bush from a hangover and called it quits, it's very pretty. After that, and hearing what it costs to play / be a member there, I couldn't be bothered going back to the local 9 hole pay as you go.
Now, thanks to a massive MTB crash and the lost of most of the use of my elbow, there are 3 things I can no longer do - Play Golf, Play Pool or Bowl, which is fine by me, I hate them all.
Anyway, ramble over, my local courses seem quiet, apart from that short period when Golf courses could open and very little ease, they were busy then. It runs along the side of one of my local trails.
I’d be more impressed if you did it with a lob wedge.
No sorry. It was a Theoben Rapid 12 in 5mm calibre running at about 30 ft/lbs.
A custom built reflex silencer made it graveyard quiet.
I used to play quite regularly when I was younger but having kids cut down on my free time quite a lot. From the courses around me it seems they're trying to move with the times but there's still a lot of old duffers that don't want things to change and need to line up a putt from every angle possible before and slowing everything down. Not everyone wants to (or more likely has the time to) spend 4+ hours for a round and then another 4 hours at the clubhouse getting tanked up and talking about the 40 points you scored last week.
I played a couple of rounds of speed golf last year and really enjoyed that. It takes an hour or so depending on fitness and it's a really good workout. If more clubs set aside the first hour of tee times for something like that you might get a younger crowd involved.
he pays as Celtic Manor, I think I managed 9 Holes, threw up on a bush from a hangover and called it quits, it’s very pretty. After that, and hearing what it costs to play / be a member there, I couldn’t be bothered going back to the local 9 hole pay as you go.
To be fair, that's like saying that you tried football once by playing at Wembley.
One of the absolute best bits about golf is that , in the main, you can just rock up as an absolute beginner and play on exactly the same courses that the highest level professional competitions are played. There are very few sports where this is the case.
I’ve just learned that our local club has closed after ninety four years.
Had an offer from a developer to put a couple of hundred houses on it with each member getting a cut of the sales fee?
Like most things, you've got to do it a lot to be any good, and given the glacial pace of golf it takes hours. My BIL plays once a week, and that takes up most of his Saturday, but he can't improve as he can't get on the course any more than that. Works in the week ! No doubt he'd be much better in retirement.
Most of the golfers I've met in the past (colleagues) used to go on about how good they were. You'd ask about their handicap, and it would be mid teens - so fairly average. The only other guy, never really said much, although I knew he played a fair amount of golf (no family). I said, 'so I know you play a bit of golf, what's your handicap ?. 'Erm scratch' he said. Truly a very modest man.
One of the absolute best bits about golf is that , in the main, you can just rock up as an absolute beginner and play on exactly the same courses that the highest level professional competitions are played. There are very few sports where this is the case.
Cycling being another and i know which i'd rather choose.
3 within walking distance of me, all open and doing OK. Golf must be popular amongst the pensioners of Calderfornia 🙂
Never seen the attraction myself, but each to their own 🙂
I think there's a number of factors at play:
Average age of members is increasing and failing to attract new members - heyday was the 60s/70s - now green fees not covering costs
Drink drive laws and pressure to spend time with family - not pissed up all Sunday with your mates
Prime development land - particularly if the geriatric members have shares in the club can cash-in
Attitudes do differ between Scotland and England between those who are 'seen' to play golf
Different attitudes to corporate hospitality / inclusivity - all the old duffers going for a piss-up with their mates on expenses is no longer acceptable
When you've got advocates like Donald Trump, who would be attracted to it?
@spursn17 like er... South Essex? I'm just up the road from there by Thorndon Country Park.
