Even back when the 10th hole of the Struie course was built in 1999, the greenkeepers at Royal Dornoch knew there could be problems.
The 349-yard Par 4 fairway runs alongside flat sand leading out to the Dornoch Firth, with tides from the North Sea running straight in towards the course. The typical solution – installing gabion baskets of stone to fortify the shoreline – wasn’t a practical option given the location of the site.
Instead, the club teamed up with the Green Shores restoration project at the University of St Andrews to repopulate the area’s salt grasses. Students from Dornoch Academy helped to cultivate the seedlings and greenkeepers installed chestnut fencing to deflect the waves, giving the young plants a chance to take root.
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“It is definitely working – there has been a huge difference,” says course manager Eoin Riddell.
“The tide will still come in and it laps against the side of the fairway of the 10th, but it’s not removing anything now because we’ve taken the force out of the tide, and in turn what that does is give the newly-planted salt marsh a chance to establish.”
It’s one example among many of the biodiversity and preservation efforts at the Sutherland club, whose land spans more than 650 hectares and attracts golfers from around the world despite its remote location in the Scottish Highlands. In many ways, says Mr Riddell, Royal Dornoch’s position on the map is intertwined with its approach to the environment.
“Because of where we are it’s very difficult and very costly to get deliveries, whether that be soil, turf or fertiliser,” he explains. “We actually have our own turf nursery where we grow our turf, and all our waste from the course is composted and then re-used. Everything is recycled.”
“We have saved probably at least a quarter of our fuel bill by using all electric,” says Mr Riddell. “It’s also quieter for going around the course, and it’s cleaner and easier to maintain because the mechanics are not having to change oil and the servicing is virtually nil. There are obviously a few bits and pieces on them but not to the degree of a petrol or diesel engine.”
He reckons these savings are close to “clearing their feet” on the considerably higher upfront cost of purchasing electric maintenance vehicles, which has made the daily job of cutting the greens and fairways easier.
“Because the machinery is better we have more manpower, so you can get things done quicker,” he says.
“Back when I started there were only six people. Myself and another apprentice that came on board at Dornoch made it up to eight, so then you were struggling to keep ahead of golf. The machines weren’t as good, they weren’t as reliable.
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“All of that has changed now. We have plenty of machines and we can send a lot of people out, get the job done very quickly, and then get out of the way of the golf.”
With a team of 20 greenkeepers and ample financial resources from a club that attracts plenty of golfers from around the world, Mr Riddell concedes he is more fortunate than many of his fellow course managers. He adds that he has the “utmost respect” for those doing the job with more limited resources.
That said, he too has had to adapt from the practices in the days when he joined Royal Dornoch in 1986.
“We used to get growth from the start of the season at the end of April or beginning of May,” he says, “but now it’s the end of May before we see proper growth, and we’re still getting growth at the end of November, which we never had before.
“Forward planning nowadays is very difficult because of the weather patterns. There are things that you used to do religiously at a certain week in the year, and that would be it. Now that can change not just by days but by weeks and even months.
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“If the weather’s not in it and you want to do a certain task, it just has to be delayed. These things still get done, they just get done at a different time, and that is now varying every year.”
Like all coastal golf courses, the direction of the wind has a great bearing both when playing at Royal Dornoch and when it comes storm erosion. The south to south-east gales produced by Storm Éowyn in January blew the tide sideways, rather than straight into the golf course, minimising damage on that occasion – but there’s always next time.
“Obviously with a links course, the biggest focus of attention is coastal erosion,” Mr Riddell says.
“With the rising sea levels, you’re always concerned about things like that, so at the moment we are looking into employing a company – we’ve put it out for tender just now – that will monitor the shoreline and all our dunes, and see how they are performing on certain occasions throughout the year, and see if we need to actually step in and stop a problem.
“It’s just making sure that we are ahead of the game and not having to react to a situation. We want to know what’s going on before the problem actually hits us.”
