Golf Course Architecture - Issue 64, April 2021

50 Since then, municipal golf has spread far and wide. Many well-known golfers learned the game on munis, and they have been crucial to introducing new players to golf. Figures from the US’s National Golf Federation (NGF) show that American muni numbers reached an all-time high of 2,515 courses in 2018 (out of, at the time, just under 15,000 courses, so munis represented not far from 20 per cent of all of American golf). But, around the world, local government has come under severe financial pressure in recent years – British figures, for example, show that local government’s ‘spending power’ has declined by 18 per cent since 2010, so it is hardly surprising that municipal golf provision has come under severe pressure too. Not long ago, before the great golf building boom of the 1990s and early 2000s, municipal courses were reliable cash-cows for their local government owners. With a huge increase in supply comes far greater competition, and often it was munis that were the fiercest targets of that competiton. “We don’t believe that making money is always the primary motivation that drives a municipality to offer golf as recreation for its residents,” said the NGF in a 2019 report. It’s a long way from Meyrick Park in 1894, when the Bournemouth town council saw golf as an essential attribute for a town that wanted to be economically successful. Now, though, the muni downturn is showing signs of slowing. Those signs may not be visible everywhere – though the boom in golf that has been seen since the start of the Covid- 19 pandemic lifts the municipal ship along with all the others – but around the golfing world, a number of localities are looking for new ways to operate their municipal golf courses and new models for them to follow. The muni revival, such as it is, cannot be said to be across the board. But what does appear to be happening is that courses with an interesting heritage, or some particular architectural notoriety, are attracting more attention – and crucially, attracting funding from sources other than hard-pressed local authorities. Take, for example, the long- established Cleeve Hill course, located outside Cheltenham in southern England. Golf has been played on Cleeve Hill, the highest point in the Cotswolds, since 1891, when the Cheltenham Golf Club was founded, playing over a course laid out by Old Tom Morris. That club was private, though the Hill was common land, and so the place remained until 1976, when the Cotswold Hills club (successor to the Cheltenham GC) moved to a new course at Ullenwood, on the south side of the town, after which the course MUNI C I PAL GOL F Photo: Jonathon Mercer