Dee Day: The view from the ground as Caird Park closes

It’s official. Scotland’s fourth largest city, and the one closest geographically to St Andrews, the Home of Golf, no longer has a public golf provision.

Part of a £500,000 blackhole in the city’s finances has been plugged, but an even bigger one has now opened.

Caird Park, home to two courses as well as generations of golfers, who have learned the game here and continued to play it, is no more.

Once upon a time, this was one of the busiest golf courses in Europe. It opened in 1920, a gift to the city from James Caird, who donated it to aid the health and wellbeing of Dundee citizens.

Three years later, the ‘Dundee Links’ was formed, and has hosted everyone from the common man to Jack Nicklaus, the 18-time major champion reported to have pegged it up during the 1968 Open at Carnoustie.

How times have changed. On Tuesday, just 24 hours before this green track walked the ‘Green Mile,’ you could have heard a pin drop.

A deafening silence lingered in the hot air as the last remaining municipal course in the ‘City of Discovery’ was consigned to the past.

Club captain Ian Gordon, a member at Caird Park for 33 years, is cleaning out the bar as he wanders round to the first tee box.

He shakes his head after one look at the par-4 opener, which climbs slightly uphill. It’s one he’s walked a countless number of times but now he has to prepare for life after ‘Cairdy’.

“It’s really said,” he says. “We’ve had members here for 30 to 50 years.

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“Our oldest is 94 and the social side is what he likes. This will affect their health and wellbeing, and mentally for not getting out in the fresh air.”

One of those, walking off the ninth green – an immaculate par-3 guarded by bunkers and surrounded by oak trees and copper-beeches – is Campbell Hendry.

He has played golf here for over 60 years and, like thousands of others, has tried to keep Caird Park open since its fate was confirmed in December, albeit to no avail.

“I emailed two SNP councillors and never even got an acknowledgement,” he said. “I also emailed a LibDem councillor, who told me he’d put in a costed proposal, and they ignored it.

“There’s been no transparency. They were going to close it a year ago but said, ‘We’ll keep it going’. Just a lie. They have a lot to answer for.”

There is a sense of deja-vu about it all, coming less than five years after another public provision, Camperdown Golf Course, closed its doors.

As of March 2024, there was an average of 1,188 members at Caird Park. Just under 30,000 18-hole rounds were played in 2023/2024, and it has been claimed that each round played is being subsidised to the tune of £9.10.

Now, potentially, thousands are being priced out of the game.

A third-party reportedly tabled ambitious plans to keep it open but, as Gordon claims, a “narrow-minded council” wanted nothing to do with it.

“The council have not helped in any way,” he adds. “They’ve just been against me.

“It’s a municipal course and if you want to play golf now, you’re going to have to join a private course, which, for a lot of guys, is out of their price range.”

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This isn’t a golf course that has been left to rot, though. In fact, quite the opposite.

From tee to green, Caird Park’s 18-holer is, for the most part, spotless. The Gelly Burn crosses the back nine four times, with water trickling through the 11th, 12th, 13th, and 17th holes.

Unmistakable, however, are the marks of electric bikes, which have circled the tenth green and ripped through the putting surface of the penultimate hole.

One incident, back in 2022, saw a burnt-out car dumped in the stream.

Graham Sheridan, now 77, first played at Caird Park in 1985, and is adamant it’s had a major impact on the council’s final decision.

“I think the vandals have had a lot to do with it,” he said. “Then they come back the next day and do it again.”

But dealing with thugs has been yet another broken promise.

“It’s beyond belief,” Sheridan added. “When they closed Camperdown, they promised they’d re-open the second nine-hole course but, instead, they’ve closed down everything.”

A rocky wall, no taller than three feet, separates the car park and the course. Slumped beside it, while machinery is whisked away, is Grant Clark and his right-hand man, Grant Fitzpatrick.

They’re the head greenkeepers at Caird Park and have serviced it for 42 years and 49 years, respectively.

Ultimately, damage to the course has landed at their feet, and all they can do is bemoan how little action has been taken to prevent it.

“Vandalism has happened here for years but the council have done nothing about it,” says Clark who, like Fitzpatrick, has been forced to look for a new job.

“Where do I even start to look? There aren’t positions available.”

Now, the pair’s tireless work has been abandoned. The final tee shots have been struck, putts holed, and hands shaken. All that is left of Caird Park Golf Course is memories.

For 68-year-old Ian Martin, a member for 20 years, his tale is of a first – and only – hole-in-one on the par-3 17th.

“It was us three that day,” he says, pointing to friends Matthew Watterson and Arthur Innes stood beside him ahead of their last round.

“I was bending down to pick up my tee and they shouted, ‘it’s in’. I thought they were kidding me on. That’s my big memory from here.”

No such jokes can be made about the risk that Dundee is, clearly, willing to make.

John Turnbull A graduate of the University of Stirling, John joined the bunkered team in 2023 as a Content Producer, with a responsibility for covering all breaking news, tour news, grassroots content and much more besides. A keen golfer, he plays the majority of his golf at Falkirk Tryst Golf Club. Top of his 'bucket list' is a round of Pebble Beach... ideally in the company of Gareth Bale.