Rotting in plain sight: A morning at Glasgow’s abandoned golf courses

It’s a little before 10am on a frigid Monday in Glasgow and, as Scotland’s biggest city continues the countdown to Christmas, it’s Groundhog Day on the south side of the Clyde.

Here at Linn Park, a silent night has given way to yet another muted morning. All is calm but little is bright.

A murder of crows pecks in vain at the frozen ground. Dogs bounce around expectantly at the feet of owners who are deep in conversation about this and that. A lone magpie observes it all from its perch on a nearby fence. One for sorrow, indeed.

The sun, which never fully rises at this time of year anyway, is doing its best to stream through the branches of barren trees but, in truth, it set here long ago.

‘Royal Linn’, just like Ruchill and Alexandra Park, was all-but-abandoned by the city council in 2020. The courses at Knightswood and Littlehill were spared, whilst Lethamhill was sold to the R&A and transformed into Golf It.

But the other three were left to rot in plain sight, overgrown bunkers and barely maintained grass almost all that remains of them.

The 18-hole Linn Park had existed for close to a century when it shut in March 2020, the Covid pandemic expediting plans announced by the city council just weeks earlier.

Local golfers had reacted angrily to that announcement, one telling the Glasgow Times: “You meet a lot of people down here. It keeps you sane. This is our life.

“I love coming here at the weekend and now they’re trying to take it away from us. If they shut this course the south side has nothing.”

Councillor Malcolm Cunning insisted the case for retaining the course was “unarguable”. Evidently, his colleagues in the City Chambers disagreed.

Today, the clubhouse is barricaded and plastered on one side with graffiti, whilst the car park – once packed with cars and expectant golfers – is mostly empty and covered in potholes and broken glass.

As recently as 2018, over 6,000 rounds were recorded here, although with better management, the receipts might have been higher. For years, many golfers reported arriving to play only to find nobody there to take their green fee.

Strapped to a fence opposite the clubhouse, a colourful sign peeks out from behind a bin. Hanging limply to a fence, an abandoned carpet dumped below, it is a decade-old reminder that Linn Park was a Commonwealth Games ‘Hub Park’ when Glasgow staged the showpiece event in 2014. “A GAMES LEGACY FOR GLASGOW” is printed at the bottom of the sign next to the Glasgow City Council logo.

As the city gears up for the return of the Games in 2026 – reportedly subsidised in full by the Commonwealth Games Federation, the UK government and Australian taxpayers – locals at Linn Park would be forgiven for wondering precisely what that legacy is and how many editions of the Games will be needed to deliver it.

The views from the highest points of the course remain spectacular, particularly on such clear mornings. Glasgow bustles away beyond the fairway below, steam rising from chimney tops, whilst the frost-tipped peaks of the Campsies keep watch in the distance. It’s as good a view as you’ll get from any city golf course anywhere in the country. Only now, it exists without the accompanying soundtrack of sweetly-struck and the occasional screech of ‘Fore!’

What a waste.

Across the Clyde in the city’s east end, Alexandra Park hums its own version of this sorry lament.

Named in honour of Princess Alexandra of Denmark, the park opened in 1890 and was followed two years later by a nine-hole course within its gates. Operated by Glasgow Golf Club for its first 25 years, it was taken over by the Glasgow Corporation in 1896 when the club secured a new home on the adjoining Blackhill estate.

A newspaper report at the time noted the Corporation had invested a considerable amount of money in purchasing and improving the condition of the course after concluding that “the ancient game should continue to be one of the recreations provided for the citizens in the public parks of the city.”

How times have changed.

Today, the layout’s bare bones are all that’s left. Overgrown fairways are flanked by thickets of wild grass, littered with discarded clothes and empty glass bottles. The greens look like they’re running at one, whilst weeds have commandeered the bunkers. It’s grim.

The loss of the course in favour of Knightswood on the opposite side of Glasgow ignited, if not a turf war exactly, then certainly cross-city resentment.

Speaking to bunkered.co.uk at the time, William McLachlan, the chairperson of Friends Of Alexandra Park action group, said: “Look where Knightswood is and where we are. It feels like the west end gets everything but the east end gets ignored time and time again.

“Don’t get me wrong, we were half-expecting the news but it still came as a massive blow. We’re hoping they’ll change their mind but I’d be lying if I said any of us were feeling optimistic. We’ve not been listened to so far so it’s hard to see how that will change.

“We’re just gutted.”

That sentiment hangs heavy in the air around the streets of Ruchill.

Sandwiched between Maryhill, Possilpark and North Kelvinside in the north of the city, its own nine-hole course closed in August 2019, just two months after the city council opened a public consultation into the future of its six courses.

Built in 1928, it had originally shut in 1997 due to budget cuts – what else! – but, with support from a local steering group and the Scottish Junior Golf Partnership, it was resurrected, re-modelled, and in 2009 re-opened. Colin Montgomerie was on hand to cut the ribbon.

At the same time, Glasgow City Council leader Steven Purcell declared that “increasing physical activity” in the city was “a key objective for the council” as he pledged to make golf at all six council-run courses free for all under-18s.

The message, it seems, did not get through.

The number of rounds played at Ruchill had tumbled to just 322 in the year leading up to its closure, down from 694 the year prior.

However, context is important. The council spent almost £50,000 less on maintaining Ruchill in 2017-18 than it did Knightswood and, according to locals, did little to advertise the fact the course even existed.

“The council has made a complete arse of it,” said one dog-walker this morning. “They never advertised the fact that they have this amazing facility. They just built it and left and, at the first sign it wasn’t working, they pulled the plug. But it’s what we’ve come to expect from politicians.”

Whilst the course has been closed for several years – large holes and tyre tracks dug into what were once the greens – various community groups still use the clubhouse and plans are reportedly in place to transform the course into ‘urban farm’ complete with livestock.

“As if that’s going to work,” scoffed another local. “A bunch of goats running around the place. It’s absolute nonsense.”

Maybe so. But here we are. Glasgow. The ‘Dear Green Place’ with its decomposing green spaces.

The lack of a plan – or at least the lack of a communicated plan – for what used to be three extremely popular golf courses should give pause for thought for golfers in other cities and communities.

Dundee, for example. Following the closure of Camperdown in 2020, Dundonians dependent on public courses were left with only the two tracks at Caird Park, one 18-hole and one nine. However, it was announced last week that they, too, will shut early in 2025.

Rumours abound that multiple other councils continue to toy with the idea of bringing down the shutters on their own courses, amid a backdrop of spiraling costs and big-chequed advances from property developers.

Nowhere, it seems, is safe.

The clock says it’s now a little after midday but, really, it’s a minute to midnight for public golf.

So. What are you going to do about it?

Michael McEwan is the Deputy Editor of bunkered and has been part of the team since 2004. In that time, he has interviewed almost every major figure within the sport, from Jack Nicklaus, to Rory McIlroy, to Donald Trump. The host of the multi award-winning bunkered Podcast and a member of Balfron Golfing Society, Michael is the author of three books and is the 2023 PPA Scotland 'Writer of the Year' and 'Columnist of the Year'. Dislikes white belts, yellow balls and iron headcovers. Likes being drawn out of the media ballot to play Augusta National.

Deputy Editor