Forgotten Greens: The Abandoned Golf Courses of Scotland

Though Scotland is the 'Home of Golf' not all her golf courses have survived, and the author's diligent search in archives and local newspapers throughout Scotland has uncovered over 500 such 'missing links'. Some were lost when the golf club moved to new locations, or the land-owner caused difficulties, and others were extinguished by the growth of the cities. Many courses established during the Victorian growth of the railways were lost when the network shrank. War took its toll, since agriculture was preferred to leisure, and courses were dug up. Some organisations supported their own courses, notably the military, and even psychiatric institutions and lighthouse keepers had to have their golf. Hotels and private estates for a time provided golf for their guests, but these, like other low-maintenance simple lay-outs, eventually did not satisfy. The evidence found for these forgotten greens, often elusive, includes the plans and accounts of the opening ceremony, recreating the founders' poignant optimism for the future of their course. Old maps are used throughout to identify the lost courses, giving a profusely illustrated 'refreshing and exciting reference work', as Colin Montgomerie calls it in his Introduction.