Dalmuir becomes latest Scottish golf club to close

Dalmuir Golf Club near Glasgow has become the latest Scottish venue to close down.

West Dunbartonshire Council, which needs to close a £7.7 million funding gap, said it could no longer afford to subsidise the facility after a steady decline in membership.

It said it spent about £145,000 subsidising the course in the last year, equating to about £805 per member.

The council has said it would explore opportunities for the course to be passed into the hands of the local community via an asset transfer.

A spokeswoman for the council said: “Despite significant efforts, regrettably membership and usage of Dalmuir Golf Course has continued to decline.

“Our budget gap for 2025/26 was £7.7 million and we expect further financial challenges in coming years so we must prioritise protection of the essential services we provide to residents including education, housing and citizen support.”

The course was saved from closure last year and it is home to a number of clubs in the area including Clydeview Cleddans, Clydebank Overtoun, Kilbowie and Radnor golf clubs.

Councillors weighed up various options, including whether to increase membership costs, reduce the course to 12 holes or close it completely, before coming to a decision.

Craig McLaren, of Clydebank and Overtoun Golf Club, said locals feared the area could become a “wasteland” if it closed.

He added that the course had “gone downhill” in recent years and that West Dunbartonshire Council had not managed to do minor tasks such as updating the course’s website with correct information.

Scottish golf clubs have faced difficulties in recent months, with two others closing and several stating that they fear for their futures.

Meanwhile, Jim Croxton, chief executive of the British and International Golf Greenkeepers’ Association (BIGGA), has said warmer, wilder winters are creating an “existential threat” for some of Scotland’s coastal courses, while most inland are battling against mud-churning downpours and destruction from extreme winds. He says that Scottish clubs should consider delaying the start of the season until as late as May.

“A lot of our members talk about the fact they are still cutting grass in December when you used to kind of hang up the mowers at Halloween at the latest, and you could very much go into course construction and winter project mode knowing that you weren’t bothered about grass,” he said.

“Now that seems to run through, and January and February have become the fallow time for grass growth, when it used to be quite often in November and December you would get a really good run at your projects in advance.

“That naturally has an impact on opening days for golf clubs. Quite foolishly we still seem obsessed with getting ready for a March opening day, or definitely by the first of April, and my personal view is that I don’t think the golf season really arrives until at least Easter and probably more into May.

“But unfortunately clubs are determined to have that first medal of the year on that first weekend of April, or whatever it may be, and very often the course is not quite ready because we have had a cold spring, and we may not have even finished some of the winter work because of all these other difficulties.

“The key thing here is adaptability. There used to be an ethos that you could more or less manage your golf course by the calendar, but that’s completely changed now.”