Golf for Argyll

You can check the results of golf competitions at Islay Golf Club online now. Great initiative. Have fun.

Just time to enter for Helensburgh Golf Club’s Ben Bouie Mixed Foursomes competition on Sunday 24th August.

Glencruitten Golf Course in Oban is offering a 50% discount for new members for the rest of the season.

The First Minister is reported today as having gone off on a golfing holiday in Scotland. But where? Let’s campaign to have him come to golf Argyll next year - we have a wide range of amazing courses from the feather-bedded Loch Lomond to nine-hole links courses on the islands - and some memorable signature holes.

The so-called ‘credit crunch’ is chewing at some of Scotland’s best known golf courses, including possibly Argyll’s ultra-exclusive Loch Lomond, recent host to the Barclays Scottish Open. It has recently lodged accounts showing that an annual loss of £19.2 million - an increase of 300%. The shareholders deficit is thought to be around £70 million and the club is reported to be in urgent talks with its bank, Halifax Bank of Scotland (HBOS). HBOS is itself known to be oin a degree of trouble.

The Glen Golf Club in North Berwick went for redundancies in June; Haddington Golf Club in East Lothian had to deny publicly that it was on the brink of bankruptcy; and business as well as personal problems are thought to have driven Castle Park’s owner to suicide last year.

What’s happening is that golf’s revenues are governed by disposable income - which is rapidly being cut back in today’s rising prices and falling financial markets.

The high end of the market is largely above the fray. The low-end pay-to-play courses, where they are well run - and many are, are likely to survive because they attract the younger players who prefer a less formal context than most traditional members’ club create.

The middle ground - the members’ clubs, most with an ageing membership - will feel the hurt most keenly. Their management standards are more varied that the top or bottom ends and their membership, with substantial annual fees to meet, will be the hardest hit by a sudden drop in disposable income. Mike Williamson, golf business consultant with MW Associates, based in Edinburgh, paints a picture of a 20% growth in supply over the 10-15 years - alongside much slower growth in golf tourism and in the numbers playing and taking up the sport. He sees around 20% of middle ground traditional members’ clubs facing potential financial problems. He sees possible solutions - hard for many to accept easily - as including amalgamation or sharing clubhouse management and/or greenkeeping operations - or shutting up shop.

Argyll has a fair number of characterful pay-to-play courses but some of its long establisjed members’ clubs may be in for hard times and tough decisions.

Take a deep breath and read on. Aberdeen man, Allan Errington who describes himself - reasonably enough - as ‘a rubbish golfer’, has had a day of unbelievable happenings. Playing eighteen holes at Newmachar Golf Club on an office day out, he went about 50 over par, lost 22 balls, hit a hole-in-one at the 181 yard ninth, won a Volkswagon Golf for this achievement, turned professional because amateur rules prohibit the acceptance of prizes worth over £500 - and promptly retired. For any Argyll amateur golfer contemplating a visit to Newmachar’s ninth with a bagfull of balls to lose in the offing, the Royal and Ancient’s Amateur Status Committee make the situation clear.

With less than a week to go to the Barclay’s Scottish Open at Loch Lomond in Argyll, the competition promises to deliver a great spectator sport. Tiger Woods is out having knee surgery but Ernie Els, Adam Scott, Phil MIckelson will be there with last year’s winner, Gregory Havret. Havret’s talking up his own chances on the back of his affinity with Scotland and with this course. He says: ‘I wasn’t playing too well before Loch Lomond last year. Then I got to Scotland, felt inspired and look what happened. Golf can change like that. One little swing thought on the practice ground can turn things round. Hopefully I can find my game again at Loch Lomond’. And no one should ignore Colin Montgomery. The man got married at Loch Lomond recently, loves the course and is working to secure a place on NIck Faldo’s European Ryder Cup team.

A local  note is how good it as to see Helensburgh Golf Club go on entrpreneurial attack and put a big banner advertising its great course with great views right on the roundabout on the way up to the Loch Lomond course.

Argyll offers thirty two golf courses, from private to public, parkland, hilly and links, eighteen hole to nine hole. Some are the grandest of the grand like the very expensive private courses at Loch Lomond Golf Club, hosting the annual Barclays Scottish Open. Some are small courses with minimal facilities and great views - like Bute Golf Club. Some have legendary signature holes like Machrihanish Golf Club’s first hole.

Many of the courses have been designed by respected course builders like Old Tom Morris, James Braid and Ben Sayers. All offer unique challenges and highly individual experiences. As with everywhere in Argyll, there is no course of any scale and size that lacks significant scenic appeal.