Driver of the economy with an iron-clad history - Nick Freer

On a rare midweek day out of the office, I got an equally rarefied chance to play golf on the hallowed turf fairways of the Loch Lomond Golf Club this week. With the rhododendrons nearing full bloom on what felt like the first day of summer, the majesty of the loch and surrounding hills was only matched by the sparkling shots made by my impressive playing partners.

Sadly, majestic would not be an accurate way to describe my own golf game… middling to mediocre would be much closer to the mark. There is that saying about golf being “a good walk spoiled”, but for me it’s a glorious game, irrespective of my lack of talent when swinging a shaft of iron at a small white, hard-coated rubber ball in a most inglorious fashion.

With hundreds of thousands of golf tourists flocking to our courses from the rest of the UK, Ireland, the USA, Germany, Japan, and Scandinavia, to name but a few of the golf-mad nations, the game itself is an annual economic driver to the tune of £300 million. Loch Lomond is undoubtedly a jewel in the crown, with facilities and staff from the very top shelf.

Last year, LinksDAO, a Web3 online community in the States that counts NBA star Stephen Curry as one of its early investors, had a bid to buy the Spey Bay Golf Club at Fochabers on the Moray Firth accepted, having previously raised more than $11 million through the sale of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) from its near one thousand membership.

The 17th green at Loch Lomond Golf Club

The LinksDAO story is a modern spin on a game steeped in history. In the case of Spey Bay for example, former British prime minister Ramsay MacDonald was a member of the club. The modern spin is that Spey Bay will become the first golf club in the UK to be owned by an organisation funded by cryptocurrency.

My understanding is that LinksDAO cast its net wide, across multiple continents, looking for a golfing property to meet high expectations on its scorecard. So, even better that Scotland came up trumps - and please note the use of a lowercase ’t’ here ( in “trump”) in relation to the Scottish golf scene.

If I have a favourite golf course, it’s probably the Isle of Harris Golf Club at Scarista on the island’s west coast, a 9-hole diamond in the rough with a heavenly vista to a sickle-shaped white sand beach with the Atlantic surf crashing in. If tee-off times existed on Harris, wandering sheep would wreak havoc to the golfing timetable, but no-one seems in too much of a hurry which is very much part of the island’s Hebridean charm.

While there can’t be many places better than Harris to get far from the madding crowd, it is admittedly a bit of a trek for a round of golf. Closer to home, in Edinburgh, East Lothian, and Fife, there are fantastic courses aplenty, including those of the municipal variety. In this category, Braid Hills is a classic, with incredible views over the city, the Firth of Forth, and the Pentland Hills.

Extra points for spotting golfing puns above.

Nick Freer is the founding director of corporate communications agency the Freer Consultancy