Turning the tide: how golf courses are tackling coastal erosion

They say desperate times call for desperate measures.

Mike MacDonald, the general manager of Fortrose & Rosemarkie, can surely relate. MacDonald has worked at the Highlands club for more than two decades but it’s more than a job to him. Truly.

It was there, as a five-year-old, that he hit a ball for the first time. He’s since gone on to win the club championship eight times. His father was a former club captain and president. It’s a place, he insists, that’s “in the family”.

And what a place it is. As well as being the 15th-oldest club in the world – dating back to 1793 – Fortrose & Rosemarkie also straddles one of the most spectacular sites for a golf course anywhere on the planet.

Occupying the narrow Chanonry Peninsula in the Black Isle, the award-winning, James Braid-designed championship links is flanked on all sides by the Moray Firth.

Sunsets on those long, sunny summer’s nights are the stuff of postcards. It’s not uncommon to see pods of dolphins leaping about in the sea as you line up your next shot. Special doesn’t do it justice.

And yet its USP is also its crutch.

Rising sea levels and increased storm activity has, quite literally, eaten away at the course. It’s a problem that came to a head in October 2023 when Storm Ciaran battered the UK with lashing rain, fierce winds and widespread flooding.

“I’d never seen anything like it,” MacDonald tells bunkered. “It was just awful.”

It was only when the storm subsided that the extent of the damage became clear. The waves had washed away between five and six metres in places, with the area around the first and second tees particularly badly impacted.

The worst part about it? That MacDonald and his team had seen it coming.

“Towards the end of 2022, we set up a coastal erosion sub-committee and, throughout 2023, we met with various representatives from the Highland Council and Scottish Water to highlight the issues we were facing. We got next to no support from either.

“We also attempted to source funding from various national bodies, including Nature Scotland, but were turned down.

“We tried to be pro-active and get on the front foot because we knew what was coming but we were left to our own devices.

“So, it wasn’t a surprise that we were impacted. What was surprising was the extent of the damage. It was far more severe and devastating than any of us anticipated.”

To safeguard against future storms, the club is reinforcing the area around the first and second tees with rock armour. Occupying more than 100 metres, it’s a significant undertaking with a price tag to match.

“It’s going to cost us £140,000,” MacDonald adds. “But we’ve got no option. The storms aren’t going to stop and, if we do nothing, we’ll lose the course.

“That’s a certainty.”

With no ‘official’ support forthcoming, MacDonald has been forced to think of creative solutions to subsidise the cost of the armour. That included launching a crowdfunding campaign at the tail-end of 2023.

“I’m not the sort of person who likes to get the begging bowl out,” he says. “But we had no option. It was either that or put a levy on the members, which is something I’m not prepared to do right now. Whilst our membership is incredibly loyal and engaged, times are tight for everybody right now and you don’t want to give anyone a reason to walk away. So, creating a GoFundMe page seemed like the best solution.”

To date, it has raised just over £28,000, with another £5,000 or so in offline donations having also been received. The club is also offering lifetime overseas golf membership, with the money raised going into the erosion-busting pot.

“There’s not been a day in the last six months that erosion hasn’t occupied at least a part of my day,” MacDonald adds. “It’s a horrible situation but this club matters. Not just to me, not just to the members, but to the local community and wider golf community. We’re not prepared to sit back and watch it fall into the sea. We’re going to fight.”

Sadly, Fortrose & Rosemarkie’s predicament is by no means unique. The consequences of coastal erosion are being felt by low-lying courses across the UK, and increasingly so.

In 2020, having lost 15 metres of land to the sea when Storm Eleanor hit two years earlier, Royal North Devon – the oldest course in England and warmly regarded as ‘The St Andrews of the South’ – was forced to take emergency action. It completely replaced its eighth hole, relocated its ninth tee and made some further alterations to its seventh green.

At the time, general manager Mark Evans explained to The Telegraph how the only thing that stood between Old Tom’s first English layout and the Atlantic Ocean was a 400-year-old cobble ridge. He estimated that the part of the course closest to the sea might only have 20 years left.

Alnmouth Village Golf Club, home to the oldest nine-hole links in England, has seen large sections of its course tumble into the sea in the past year, with club secretary Ian Simpson predicting they “will eventually lose the golf course if nothing is done”.

In Scotland, the picture is particularly concerning. A 2021 study by Dynamic Coast identified 109 courses – roughly one in five – as being at risk of erosion by 2050. When you consider the huge, positive impact of golf on the Scottish economy, driving tourism and sustaining jobs, not to mention the sustainability and biodiversity benefits of the sport, the scale of the issue starts to come into focus.

Montrose Golf Links has been battling erosion for decades. In 2018, a Scottish Government briefing calculated that the coastline upon which it sits could wear away by up to 80 metres over the next 40 years. The third tee was moved in 2017 but has already gone, with a club official telling the BBC recently that the sea took back seven metres in just one year.

“If we lose another seven metres it is on the middle of the fairway,” former chairman John Adams said. “In a decade it is gone and, if it keeps coming, it will go into the town. What’s happening here is literally reshaping the map.”

Around half a million pounds has been allocated for improving defences this year but the local council has advised the club to begin its “managed retreat” from the sea.

North Berwick has started to see slight, localised areas of erosion, with Golspie and the Struie Course at Royal Dornoch amongst the others to have experienced their own issues.

Not even St Andrews, the ‘Home of Golf’ itself, is safe. In 2021, an organisation called Climate Central – a group comprised of leading scientists and journalists who assess climate change’s impact on society – released findings of its study that predicted which parts of Scotland’s coastline were most vulnerable to erosion. St Andrews’ iconic and world-renowned links was one, with the study suggesting that, in a worst-case scenario, it could be under water as early as 2050.

A more recent study, carried out by The Courier, set the doomsday date for the links as 2100, again should the worst come to pass and without any remedial action being taken.

Fortunately, measures are in place. Indeed, none of the studies’ findings have particularly surprised the team at the St Andrews Links Trust. This is an issue they have been addressing for some time.

Over the last 15 years, the dunes of the West Sands have steadily reinforced and restored – the largest and longest-running programme of its kind in the country. Beach feeding and salt-marsh planning has also been carried out on the Eden coastline.

More recently, the Trust bought three fields from an adjacent farm, which sits adjacent to the western extremity of the links.

The land in question was identified as an area of potential weakness and, though it will remain in use for agricultural purposes for the foreseeable future, buying it now allows the Trust to enhance its coastal erosion mitigation measures, protects against any potential future development by third parties, and may well provide opportunities for future expansion of the Links and its facilities in the years to come.

“Last winter was a challenging one with a number of storms, high tides and easterly winds impacting our recent restoration efforts,” Ranald Strachan, the Lead West Sands Ranger at St Andrews Links Trust, explains. “However, while it’s always disappointing to see restoration efforts washed away, it is the exact reason they are built in the first place to provide the first layer of protection in climatic events such as those experienced in the past few months.

“There is no doubt we are in a much stronger position than we would be due to the dune restoration work and coastal management that has been undertaken over the past 15 years.

“We will continue to implement defensive and adaptation plans at both the West Sands and the Eden Estuary to ensure there is a long and successful future for golf at St Andrews Links.”

Sandy Reid, the director of greenkeeping at the Trust, acknowledges that coastal erosion is a threat and is alert to the clear and present danger it poses. However, he has zero doubt that he and his fellow custodians are on the front foot.

“The projections we saw a couple of years ago are definitely alarming – but that’s a ‘do nothing’ scenario,” he says.

“We’re not doing nothing. We’ve got a track record of doing good work and we’re making gains. I’m confident we can hold the line.”

Indeed, that rings true beyond St Andrews. There is a growing conviction that the fight with the sea is a battle that can be won. The R&A, for example, has commissioned research into the issue through its Golf Course 2030 initiative and intends to issue a report with findings as soon as that study is complete.

Other organisations, such as Dynamic Course and the Scottish Environment Protection Agency, have created their erosion and flood maps to help communities monitor the latest trends and changes that might impact them.

There is, though, little doubt that the clock is ticking.

With each day of inaction, the sea creeps closer. The window of opportunity to tackle this crisis is small and shutting fast. If we are to turn the tide, it really is now or never.

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This feature first appeared in issue 212 of bunkered. For more content like this, delivered straight to your door ten times a year, take out a subscription. International subs also available.

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