Martin Dempster: Maximising assets is the key to golf club survival

That thought struck me as I mulled over the events of a members’ meeting at my own club, Aberdour, over governance, the expertise on that being provided by Scottish Golf Union club development officer Iain Evans, who effectively chaired the evening and admitted it had been the “best attended” of similar events on his patch – the east of Scotland – over the past few months.

Apart from the fact there was only one person in the room under the age of 30 – and he was the club’s trainee professional – it was a useful exercise, even though the issues raised were probably no different to the moans and groans expressed by members around a decade ago.

Evans asked those in attendance to write down the three aspects they thought were the club’s main strengths and, at Aberdour, one of those is a no-brainer. The course sits on the north shore of the Firth of Forth and enjoys stunning views across the water to Edinburgh with the Pentland Hills – snow capped at the moment – as a beautiful backdrop.

At 5,447 yards and with a par of 67 – the course has six par-3s, including the opening two holes that are absolute gems though potential card-wreckers, too – it’s a perfect club golfer’s course. Indeed, Aberdour has just been voted fourth in a competition run by Bunkered golf magazine to find “Scotland’s Best Golfing Experience”.

Though competitions such as these should probably be taken with a pinch of salt – Loch Lomond, for instance, was voted as the best course in Scotland by readers of the same magazine when it was still bedding in – our little club slotted in behind Turnberry, Kingsbarns and Gleneagles and just ahead of St Andrews, Archerfield Links and Castle Stuart.

In short, Aberdour has lots going for it, yet some of the comments last week made you wonder if some people are losing sight of that. For instance, a good few in the audience intimated support for the layout of some of the holes being altered. Personally, I’d like to see the routing changed, simply because it would break up a few of the shortish par-4s on the back nine, but it would be a big mistake to make any major alterations.

Despite its position on that aforementioned list, we are not talking here about a championship golf course. When the greens are slick, it can still be a decent test for good golfers but, in the main, it has always been regarded as an enjoyable test for golfers of all abilities and that’s the way it should stay.

While a programme is in place to improve drainage – like many other courses in Scotland, Aberdour suffered badly from last summer’s wet spell and is still trying to recover – far more important in the battle to retain members, never mind attract new ones, is keeping the membership fee affordable.

Our annual subscription is just under £500 and it was no surprise to hear one voice in the room remind us that “compared to clubs down in the south of England that’s cheap golf”. Sorry sir, but that applies to just about every club in Scotland. The guy who also said he’d just joined and couldn’t believe how lucky he had been probably forgot to say he had benefitted from a cut-price deal introduced in response to the club losing around 50 members since last year.

In Aberdour’s case, it is about trying to offer something better than the other clubs in west Fife, the likes of neighbouring Burntisland and, around Dunfermline, the quartet of Pitreavie, Pitfirrane, Canmore and Forrester Park. At the same time, there is no reason why those clubs shouldn’t be looking to work together, just as a dozen or so clubs in Edinburgh are now doing in a bid to pool expertise and ideas.

But let’s keep things simple. Every two years a golf club gets a new captain and, far too often, he or she becomes a Tasmanian Devil and implements all sorts of changes. For the record, the current incumbent at Aberdour isn’t like that, though he is certainly passionate about his position and is clearly working hard on behalf of his members.

The vast majority of Scotland’s 500-odd golf clubs have been around for more than a century. A few of them are teetering on the brink at present and, sadly, a handful could well have to close their doors in the next year or two. Most have strengths, though, that helped them become established in the first place and, in Aberdour’s case, you only need to step on to the first tee to discover what that is.

Foursomes revival would be apt legacy

Another member of the Scottish golf writers’ group when I first started covering the game has joined the Press Club in the sky. Jack Robertson worked for the Evening Times in Glasgow and his role involved running the Scottish Foursomes Championship, which was sponsored by his newspaper, every summer.

Held in the west one year then the east the next, it was a marvellous event and, back in 1989, I remember watching Dean Robertson, just a whippersnapper at the time, joining forces with Brian Park to claim the title for Cochrane Castle at Paisley, where they beat the host club in the final.

Sadly, the Scottish Foursomes is no longer on the fixture list, having fallen victim to a combination of changing circumstances and financial cuts, and it’s to be hoped that a similar fate does not befall some of the other historic tournaments on the Scottish fixture list.

The Dispatch Trophy, for example, has been played at the Braid Hills in Edinburgh since 1890 but, from a peak of 128 entries (that figure was last reached in 1991) the entry for the four-man team event is now around the 60 mark.

For Ian MacNiven, Robertson’s long-time counterpart on the Edinburgh Evening News, covering the Dispatch Trophy was the highlight of his season, catching up with so many well-kent faces proving more enjoyable to him than the hustle and bustle of an Open Championship.

Robertson probably felt exactly the same about the Scottish Foursomes and it would be a fitting legacy to him if that event was restored to the domestic schedule one day.