Golf boom: How Scotland’s munis are thriving

MEMBERSHIPS

With both Edinburgh Leisure and Glasgow Life keen to stress the importance of living an active and healthy lifestyle, other affordable golf membership options have been created that includes links with other council-owned facilities.

“Because we’re tied in with leisure centres, we can offer a huge range of products from free memberships for U12s, cheaper rates for young adults, significant discounts for seniors and discount cards that allow people to use our gyms, swimming pools and golf courses for a reduced fee,” adds Mathew Harper.

“For example, a great product we have is an over-75s discount card, which allows people to play golf at effectively half price and also free swimming.

“We have a lot of tie-ins and although we want as many people playing golf, it’s important that we’re helping the people of Edinburgh stay as active as possible.”

Similar schemes are in place in Glasgow. With a Glasgow Club card, which is available at no monthly cost, users can get 10% off green fees and season ticket costs, while those over the age of 60 can get almost 50% off an annual subscription, which covers its six courses of Littlehill, Lethamhill, Linn Park, Alexandra Park, Knightswood and Ruchill.

Edinburgh Leisure even recently set-up its own golf club due to demand from users who didn’t want to join an affiliated club but wanted an official handicap.

For an extra £25, golfers can join the Edinburgh Leisure Golf Club and play in bi-monthly medals at any of the six affiliated courses and get just that.

And that’s something which was of great interest to recently retired couple Paul and Fiona Barber (above), who were so satisfied with what Edinburgh Leisure had to offer that they didn’t hesitate to make both of their temporary winter memberships permanent.

“We joined the Edinburgh Leisure Golf Club over the winter because it gave us the chance to get a handicap and also the ability to play all six Edinburgh courses, which really impressed me,” explained Fiona, 59. “We initially expected to be members just over winter but the people have made us feel so welcome that we’ve decided to keep going.

“We’re effectively getting six memberships for the price of one and we’ve played so much golf over the winter compared to normal that we’re feeling fitter than ever for this time of year.”

QUALITY

A generalisation often made about publically-owned courses is that
they lack the same quality of a private course and
are frequently targets of anti-social behaviour.

And while councils will be the first to admit they must work around constant cost-cutting and to stringent budgets, the view from workers and users alike are that this stereotype is misconceived.