HUNDREDS of Scotland’s golf courses have been lost over the last century either because they’ve relocated, been forced to close or have been completely redesigned.
The lost courses include “lunatic” asylum golf courses, which were part of a 19 century movement for sport that eventually became seen as an outdated idea.
In the early 20 century hotels were built connected to golf courses, such as at Turnberry.
But as holiday habits changed in the 1950s and people started to go abroad, many of these hotels and golf courses closed.
Private golf courses existed in the late C19th and early 20 century where country house owners had disposable income.
But these courses were often short lived, they tended to be personal projects and descendants were often less interested in spending money on maintenance.
Military golf courses were equally short lived: set up by a commanding officer to provide recreation for military personnel during both world wars, but especially so just after WWII on disused airfields.
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While some ‘lost’ courses have gone forever, their layouts returned to agricultural land, the surviving sites offer an insight into early golf course design.
Now some of these 250 former courses have been formally recorded as part of a project by RCAHMS to establish a comprehensive database on Scotland’s landscape.
RCAHMS holds the National Collection of materials on Scotland’s built environment and also holds aerial photography of each of Scotland’s golf courses.
It has recently been taking high quality digital photography of more than 500 current playing courses on the mainland of Scotland from the air, including Gleneagles, host to the 2014 Ryder Cup.
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Plus, check out your hole-by-hole guide to the Gleneagles course