The Scotsman newspaper in Edinburgh reports on climate impacts to golf.

OF ALL the current concerns surrounding the state of Scottish golf, there is one that it appears no amount of investigation or national action plans can ultimately reverse.
Global warming, and in particular coastal erosion, is set to change the face not just of Scottish golf but of links courses everywhere.
The prospect of world-famous courses, upon which Scotland’s golfing reputation is built, slipping irretrievably into the sea is one that some may consider unthinkable. But the evidence is with us already.
According to senior authorities on coastal erosion, some of the guardians of golf’s seaside heritage have their heads buried in the sand. The irrefutable arrival of climate change makes it not a question of whether Scotland’s famous links courses might be lost to the sea, but when.
Most courses are willing to fortify vulnerable holes, but moving them remains anathema. In many cases, it could be centuries before a tee or green becomes unplayable, or a fairway is swamped by the rising tide. In extreme cases, it is already happening. At Royal Montrose, the sixth tee was made unplayable by a storm in 1998 and the second and third tees are increasingly brittle. A dune beside one fairway has been fenced off for safety reasons.
Montrose is at least doing something about it, with a contingency plan for an alternative course layout. However, Glasgow University lecturer Jim Hansom, head of the Earth Surface Dynamics Research Group, believes the majority of course managers are “deluding themselves” by investing in short-term solutions and crossing their fingers in the hope that the sea will recede.
Many courses on the exposed East Neuk of Fife have invested in protective measures and are, as Crail’s David Roy says, “keeping their eye on the situation”. Royal Dornoch last year spent £300,000 of membership revenue on defences that might last up to 50 years. But Dornoch admits that if there was a devastating storm next year, the defences - and the money - could be washed away. There are, broadly, three ways of dealing with coastal erosion. The first is to install hard defences, such as rock armour and gabion baskets - stones wrapped in wire, which will be familiar to most beach-combers.
Many courses went down this road as early as the 1970s, but the old defences are expiring and the new ones - while offering a longer life span - are by no means a permanent solution.
The second type of reaction is to contrive ways to replenish the sand that is being removed from the dunes. St Andrews, where the worst effects of erosion are found on its Jubilee and Eden courses, has enjoyed some success in recharging fragile dunes. But few courses benefit from St Andrews’ natural excess of sand, and, in the case of Montrose, the supply is vanishing fast.
The third remedy is the most foolproof and, cruelly, the least palatable. It involves repositioning frail tees and greens, or even entire holes, inwards to escape the sea. In other words, altering the character, appearance and level of difficulty of iconic courses. “Over my dead body,” is the common response, which will attain prescience when future generations are forced to act.
“I understand many of the leading courses are the main local employer, and there is a big imperative to keep them to championship standard,” says Hansom, who created a management plan for the new Carrick course at Loch Lomond. “All the new ones are looking to the future. Everything I have been involved in, I have opposed hard structures on the foreshore because they have a low life span.
“I have got absolutely nothing against golf courses on the coast - in fact, they are a good use of the land. But they become a bad use of the land when you harden up the coastline. If we are to believe the warnings about climate change that we see on the news and in the scientific literature, then things will happen relatively quickly. The loss of the sediment supply is important, too, and has been overlooked.
“Basically, gabion baskets and rock armour don’t do a particularly good job: they offer a false sense of security, and the people investing their hopes in them are deluding themselves.”
John Duncan, secretary/manager of Royal Dornoch, contends that it would be sacrilegious to alter the historic links in lieu of drastic disintegration, but admits the club’s strategy is high-risk.
“The new defences we have installed, in consultation with Scottish Natural Heritage and St Andrews University, we reckon will give us a reasonable anticipation of 50 years’ protection,” says Duncan. “Of course, weather can be cyclical and at some stage there will probably be a 50-year storm. That could be in one year’s time or 49 years’ time.
“But we are also purchasing land around the perimeter of the course to give us a degree of resilience. We have so much heritage concerned with Royal Dornoch Golf Club that it would be a last resort to move the course, and the threat at the moment is not sufficient.”
Money is a moot point. Alan Crow, chairman of Montrose Golf Links Ltd, says that although there is an emergency action plan in place for the Angus links, he does not know how the alterations would be funded.
“In the last month or two we have set up a series of stakeholders’ meetings to look at the ways forward, how we can slow or stop the erosion which is particularly bad at the second and third tees,” Crow says of Montrose, which has also suffered from the dredging of sand to replenish Aberdeen beach.
HR Wallingford is a private consultancy that has advised several courses, including Kingsbarns, on how to live with erosion. Its technical director, Dr Alan Brampton, agrees with Hansom’s assertions that relocation will become unavoidable, and that most short-term solutions are a waste of money.
“My feeling is that the process of erosion has actually slowed slightly over the past ten years because we have not had the really big winter, and the really big storms like the one that wrecked the Braer oil tanker in 1993,” says Brampton. “But, in 50 years, a substantial number of Scotland’s golf courses will be nine holes or 12 holes if they do not move to more landward positions.
“For many courses, if they are not thinking about where they can move to, they are going to have a major problem. It’s not just erosion, they also have to worry about flooding. Many of the low-lying fairways will sink below sea level as the sea continues to rise.
“If they were to commission a sea levels study, some people would turn a whiter shade of pale when they see the predictions. So it’s a double whammy.”
Other threatened courses mentioned in the course of this research include Elie, Nairn, Royal Aberdeen, Tain and two on the less volatile west coast, Royal Troon and Western Gailes, trapped by a railway on its landward side.
Another major hurdle in relocating holes is that the free land nearby is often protected by Scottish Natural Heritage or designated as a Site of Special Scientific Interest. In this business, more than most, expansion is a real headache
Royal Dornoch
WRITTEN records dating back to 1616 state that Dornoch was the third Scottish links, after St Andrews and Leith. Around the turn of the 20th century the old nine-hole course was redesigned by Old Tom Morris and James Sutherland, and now the club boasts a Championship Course and secondary Struie Course.

The Royal Dornoch Golf Club was so named in 1906, and today its Championship Course enjoys worldwide fame, reflected in the club’s membership - 400 of the 1,680 members are American. It was rated the world’s fifth-best course outside the US by Golf Digest magazine.

Due to its remoteness - 49 miles north of Inverness - Royal Dornoch has never hosted a major event, but it has staged the Northern Open, the Scottish Ladies Championship and the Scottish Professional Championship.

Hard shoreline defences, known as rock armour, were introduced in the early 1990s to combat erosion. But the defences were faulty and water seeped through them, loosening grit and gravel behind.

Last year, £300,000 was invested in upgrading the defences, mostly around the par-3 10th on the Championship Course, to a membrane-based system, selected after consultations with Scottish Natural Heritage and St Andrews University. The club expects the new defences to offer 50 years’ protection against coastal erosion, as long as there are no particularly violent storms.

Apart from the 10th, the worst-affected areas are the 9th, a par 5, and the 16th tee, as well as the 9th hole on the Struie Course. In the future, every hole on the main course from 11 onwards could become vulnerable, due to their proximity to the sea.

The club applied to Highland Council for repair assistance but it was turned down. Dornoch has begun to purchase surrounding land, in case any of the holes should have to be relocated inland.