scotland Stonehaven Strikes Out

One of Scotland’s oldest golf clubs faces an uncertain future.

Last year, Stonehaven Golf Club’s more than 500 members voted to sell 20 acres of their property -– essentially, holes #9 through #12 -– to Stewart Milne Group, an Aberdeen-based home builder. With the proceeds from the sale, the Stonehaven-based club planned to overhaul its golf course, build a modern clubhouse, and attract some desperately needed dues-paying members.

Last month, however, local elected officials nixed the plan.

“I'm disappointed," the club's captain, Sandy Walker, told the Aberdeen Press & Journal upon hearing the news. "It would have been a real opportunity."

The deal with Stewart Milne was hatched out of desperation. Stonehaven has reportedly lost about 100 members over the past five years, and it’s running out of money.

“We are finding the financial climate very difficult to live with,” a club official told the paper in mid 2009. “The facilities are not very modern, and we have to improve what we offer.”

Stonehaven, which is located along the North Sea just south of Aberdeen, was founded in 1888, with a nine-hole course. The club’s full 18, which opened in 1897, is by today’s standards very short -– just 5,103 yards -– and its aged clubhouse has seen better days. (One of the course’s quirky features is a crater known as Hitler’s Bunker, which was created when a German pilot dropped a bomb on the course in 1940.)

The club had hired Graeme Webster of Niblick Golf Design, a firm based in Moss, Norway, to design three new holes, redesign several others, and, in general, give the track a nip and tuck from tee to green.

“The golf club will survive, but we will wait and see what develops," Walker said after the council's decision. "We’ll see what happens.”

On the 20 acres it agreed to buy, Milne planned to build as many as 500 houses, along with a retail/commercial area and an elementary school.

StonehavenGolfClub.com