Why this Scottish iconic course wants to stop cows and sheep

Ruined and ruminant land.

Ask a golf player thirsty GolfIN Highlands ScottishAnd they are forced to mention both.

Home for a highly valued connection, Brara doubles as a grazing land for cattle. Its distinctive features include stuck roads and greens surrounded by electric fences to keep sheep and cattle away.

For many visitors, animals are essential for the charm of Brora. But locals often get a less romantic look.

The members of the BRRA, in particular, who play the course all year, are well acquainted with the weaknesses of the holes that serve as pasture. And with a recent vote, they went down tightly: the time to get rid of the beast course with the hooves caught.

“We are very aware that there are people who see sheep and cows as an integral part of Brora’s experience,” says past club president Andy Stewart. “But like locals, we are also more capable of the influence these animals have than people who play the course only once a year.”

Prohibition of livestock was not a premature decision, Stewart notes. To better understand it, a century-plus context is required.

Founded in 1891, Brora operated as a 9 -hole club until the early 1920s, when the architect marked James Braid redizen the course in a full 18. The land, owned by the Duke of Sutherland, fell under the law of Highland which demanded that it be separated with crofters, the harsh Scottish equivalent of tenant farmers. Those crosses tend horses and, over decades, a growing number of cows and sheep. Since the 1910s, the club raised the first of several campaigns to set aside property for golf. But these efforts turned out short. In the 1960s, electric fences were installed around the greens, and life and golf continued, bringing further changes.

For one thing, Stewart says, cattle in Brora grew and more abundant, with a population of about 25 calves and a number of sheep blowing in about 250 times more than they once had. By 2017, when Stewart took over the club’s presidency, the club’s relationship with Crofters had become tense. In the eyes of many members, the crofters were allowing more animals on the ground than the rules of the permitted joint property while violating a prohibition against their livestock feed on the course. (An attempt to reach the Scotland Compotting Commission, which regulates and promotes the interests of crofting in the country, was not immediately successful).

The problems that resulted were startling. They went from violated bunkers to hoof prints on straight roads that worsened in winter when the rain softened the terrain, among other unclear others. The cows are fresh as the supplements in the course. They are less delightful when your ball lands in their manure.

“There have been many times when members, including me, have come to the course with shovels in five in the morning,” Stewart says.

In 2019, the club determined that enough. He dug into her crates and bought the land. Shortly thereafter, Covid hit. But with blockages in the past, membership reviewed the issue of livestock. When the votes were raised, about eight weeks ago, the decision was not close.

Recently, after the vote speech has come to the ether, the reactions have been mixed. At the Golf Club Atlas, the Internet Architecture Forum, one commenter worried that the course would become less movable if the sheep would not be around to cut roughly. Stewart says this is not disturbing. The club has purchased new maintenance equipment that is more than capable of filling.

“Animals don’t do a job as good as some people think,” Stewart says. “Maybe the reason that no club is rushing to place the sheep in their courses.”

Moreover, stopping cattle is not a deal made. Crofters will still have a legal saying, and by stopping a solution, the case will be tried in the Scottish land court, with many possibilities six to nine months from now.

If Brora gets her way, Stewart realizes that the club can hear some gloves. But among the players who play the most course, he is convinced that they will be minority voices. There are many upper to be livestock without cattle, including the potential to add fairway bunkers from the original braid design that were never built for fear that they would break in destruction by ruminants. The goal, says Stewart, is to present Braid’s work in his full glory for members and visitors alike.

“This is one of the excellent connections in the world and it has always been our desire to restore our course,” Stewart says. “We want to play in greens that have no electric fences, and without special rules like what do you do if your ball ends in the cow shit. They don’t do it in the master or in the open championship.”

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