From dendrochronology of a clubhouse to selling a golf hole in order to make the venue more sustainable, we review some interesting stories from the last month.
How old is your clubhouse?
The members of Woodsome Hall Golf Club in Yorkshire thought their clubhouse dated back to the 16th century, making it one of the oldest golf clubhouses in the world.
The club then conducted a dendrochronology (tree ring dating) process of the original timber trusses in the roof of the main hall, which concluded that the clubhouse is actually about 100 years older than they thought.
This means it is now believed to be the oldest original building being used as a golf clubhouse in the world.
Could you sell a hole on your golf course?
Despite the boom in golf participation in the last five years, many clubs are still struggling, partly due to rising costs. At the same time, there’s constant pressure on many clubs to sell their land for housing.One Welsh club believes it has found the perfect solution to this.
Whitchurch Golf Club, located next to a suburb in Cardiff that’s considered to be one of the most desirable places in the UK to live, has put most of its par three, seventh hole up for sale.
It plans to use the money from the sale to reconfigure the parkland course so that it will still have 18 holes. The revamped course will, in theory, be even better than the old one, as it will introduce more sustainable practices in terms of water management measures.
Could you turn down a £65 million offer for your club?
That’s what the 1,400 members of Clontarf Golf Club in Dublin have decided to do, which would have pocketed them £13 million, or more than £9,000 each.
The proposal involved surrendering the club’s land for a housing development, in which more than £50 million would have been spent on relocating to a new site.
The offer was unanimously rejected.
Incredibly, the proposal was only about half what the club was previously offered in 2007 (which then collapsed during the financial crisis).
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