Coll Golf Club
Part 2 of the history of the Coll Golf Club - part 1 appeared in issue 18

Present problems

The period from about 1990 to 1995 marked the high water mark of the Golf Club. At that time there was a booming membership with many locals taking part in games throughout the year - players like John Wheeler James, Ian and David English, Warren Stove, Mike Taylor, John Fraser, John English, Derek Stove, Ron Mitchell, Alan Underwood, Andrew Greaves, Ally Anderson and the new land-owner at the time, Neil Smith to mention but a few. Some local ladies also had a fleeting impact on the course - Moira MacIntyre and Shirley Morrison were on occasion to be heard having a laugh on the course as they played and Irene Underwood was a mean striker of a golf ball. Sadly however, the last four years have seen a slow decline in the numbers taking part in the competitions. The untimely death of John English, in 1996 and the coincidental exodus from Coll of Derek Stove and his family that year have left Neil Morrison, Ron Mitchell and Ally Anderson fighting a rearguard battle to try to maintain what took so long to establish. In addition the young ones have gone - David English, Ian English, Warren Stove - and there is no-one on Coll to take their place on the first tee on a Thursday evening.

In the summer of 1998 the weather was so dreadful that every competition was played in either horizontal rain or a howling gale. Consequently, the numbers turning out to play were low. The problems caused by the new fence which closes off the grazing for animals for the summer months has also posed a problem since the grass now grows so long that it is necessary to cut fairways something which was previously done by the sheep. This has changed the character of the golf course and made it more likely that a player will finish the game with fewer golf balls than he or she started with. Ally Anderson did a wonderful job during the summers of 1998 and 1999 cutting fairways with his new tractor and the greens with his sturdy and trusty old petrol mower-but it is a question of how long such a small number of local enthusiasts will have the energy and the will to maintain a golf course for a shrinking number of local and visiting golfers.

Perhaps though there is a new hope for the club's future. The land is again under new stewardship, Rob Wainwright having bought the land from Neil Smith. Rob has indicated an interest in developing the course and this is very welcome news for both the locals and the annual visitors who have put so much time and effort into keeping the course going through good times and bad. Hopefully the course begun so long ago by Davie Moore with nothing more than a pushmower and a big heart will have a long and successful future in the new millennium just begun.

Local Interest

In the late 70s and early 80s a number of locals were bitten by the golfing bug. These included Ron Mitchell, John Fraser, Mike Taylor (Gallanach), Ali Anderson and, in particular, John English. By 1984-85 they were ready to begin a new chapter in the history of the course when they took two key decisions - to lengthen the course and to form a Golf Club with members and membership fees. They wanted to expand their golfing season beyond the short summer and to encourage youngsters on the island to take up the game. They were keen for the game to be seen as something for all the family - as it had been since 1975. Family membership was encouraged and with fees of £20 for locals and £15 for visitors the club began to raise money to carry out further improvements. The first thing needed was a longer course and a team of willing volunteers set forth to survey the links and to mark out new tees and greens. The course was to be extended to the boundaries we know today - going all the way to the Grishipol march. John English, John Fraser, Ron Mitchell and various other volunteers planned out the new course and measured the holes by using a 100 metre rope. They named the holes and then went to survey them from the teeing areas they had chosen. The 7th hole was to be called "Rhum view" but when they got to the tee they discovered that they couldn't see Rhum! - so it became "A rum do" instead. Undeterred they finished the job, chose the names, ordered a scorecard - and after they received 5000 scorecards they decided to lengthen the 6th hole to make it a par 4 instead of a 3 par. The cards were out of date before they were printed but for fifteen years hardly anyone noticed.

The main requirements for a good course, however, were good greens and tees and the new committee ordered nameplates for each hole, real flags, real cups for the holes, a hole cutter and a petrol mower. The local team was now fully equipped and new greens and tees were prepared. In 1985 the new course was ready - and it was a credit to the hard work and perseverance of a small but dedicated band of locals who worked together to achieve at minimal cost a golf course which would be the envy of many on the mainland and further afield.

Competition fever

The local committee by 1990 included John English, Neil Morrison and Derek Stove and the club was booming. They felt that the time was right to have new competitions for members during the hectic summer weeks of July and early August in addition to the Open. In quick succession the Members' Cup (a 27 hole competition), the Campbell Scramble and the Vita Stableford competitions were introduced as Neil Campbell Junior presented a beautiful quaich for the winning team in a texas scramble and Neil MacFadyen presented two shields for a gents and ladies stableford competition. A ladies Members' Cup was presented by Alastair Kennedy for the lady members to compete for and Hamish Macrae donated a cup for the Members' competition for the lowest gross score over the 27 holes. In all 10 beautiful trophies were donated to the club to be competed for every summer in Coll by a combination of annual visitors and locals. From the humble beginnings of a golf course with tiny greens cut by a hand mower and with holes cut by a spade, Coll Golf Club had come a long way by the early 1990s.
 
D.M