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Recent communications to members at Beeston Fields Golf Course have confirmed that owners are exploring the potential for future housing development on parts of the site, alongside existing planning applications already in progress.

The debate surrounding the proposed closure of Ifield Golf Club has been framed as though relocation was never a realistic option. That framing is both misleading and dangerous.

Golf’s eagerness to promote the health of the game is obscuring a far more serious reality, the permanent loss of golf facilities with no replacement. This is a golfing crisis that future generations will look back on with disbelief.

If you asked a business leader whether they’d run a company without a plan, most would laugh at the idea.    Yet in our recent Custodian Golf Club Quiz, almost 30% of golf clubs admitted that they either don’t have a strategic plan or only put one in place when circumstances force them to.

This year has been one of the best golfing seasons in living memory. From spring through to late summer, courses across the UK have basked in long spells of sunshine punctuated by the occasional well-timed downpour. The result has been nothing short of perfect conditions. Rounds are up. Visitor numbers are up. England Golf is reporting record score submissions. On the surface, everything looks rosy.

Back in 1990, just one year after the publication of the R&A’s ‘The Demand for Golf’, I got a job at the first driving range to open in the Highlands of Scotland, on the outskirts of Inverness. At this time the R&A predicted that 691 new 18-hole courses would be needed by 2000 across the UK in order to meet growing demand and the new driving range, officially opened by Sam Torrance, was part of this growth.

With the first major of the year wrapped up and fairways across the country filling fast, the 2025 golf season is now well and truly underway. But as players return in force, so too do the pressures facing clubs behind the scenes.

Here at Custodian Golf we’ve spent the last couple of years knee-deep in data, trying to get to grips with the state of golf across Great Britain*. Our focus has been on understanding the characteristics of individual golf clubs, including things like catchment populations, how many local competitors each club has, environmental factors like flooding and weather, as well as local demographics and how hemmed in clubs are by housing and roads. But we’re also real golf data nerd

At Custodian Golf we have, over the past 18 months, pulled together what we believe is the most comprehensive golf course database in Great Britain, covering all active courses, more than 100 closed courses and in excess of 200 driving ranges. For each facility we have data on catchment populations, local competitors, rainfall, frost days, consumer ratings, how much land each facility occupies, as well as things like flood risk and how hemmed in each course is by physical fea

Golf courses are iconic landscapes, loved for their serene beauty and meticulous maintenance. Yet, beneath the surface lies a growing challenge: balancing the sport’s rich traditions with the pressing need for sustainability through adaptability. Golf is at a crossroads. There are the lions—progressive clubs embracing change, the meerkats—alert yet constrained by legacy issue clubs, and the ostriches—heads in the sand, blind to the tidal wave of challenges coming their way cl

Gradually, then suddenly – Here at Custodian Golf we’re passionate about golf in all its forms. As a group of golf, planning and data...