{"id":3358,"date":"2026-10-31T14:13:59","date_gmt":"2026-10-31T14:13:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.scotlandgolfbible.com\/?p=3358"},"modified":"2026-10-31T14:23:04","modified_gmt":"2026-10-31T14:23:04","slug":"201-douglas-water-16-jun-23","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.scotlandgolfbible.com\/?p=3358","title":{"rendered":"201. Douglas Water. 16 Jun 23."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Three seams of coal, one sand less ‘bunker’ and a \u00a37 envelope.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Price Paid:<\/strong> \u00a37 for nine holes (honesty box)
Current Price:<\/strong> Not published. In 2023 it was \u00a37 for nine holes and \u00a312 for eighteen.
Value:<\/strong> 3.5\/5 at the price paid; current price to be confirmed
Moly\u2019s Score:<\/strong> 48 gross, 13 Stableford points (nine holes)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a>
The 1st green, aptly named Table, sits on a built-up shelf and was burnt to straw in the June sun. Miss short at your peril.<\/strong><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The day before, Newcastleton (Blog 200<\/strong><\/a>) had shown how not to collect a green fee. Douglas Water showed how it\u2019s done. Envelopes in the porch for \u00a37 cash, plus bank details for online payment. Everything in the fridge costs \u00a31, from Irn Bru to a KitKat Chunky. An Uncle Sam poster reminds you the club depends on your honesty. ‘Simples’.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Uncle Sam wants your \u00a37: the honesty box poster and the porch table, with envelopes, a \u00a31 tuck shop and a payment link added in biro.<\/strong><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Playing alone, the only other person around was Jock, the part time greenkeeper who cuts the fairways for four or five hours each week. The club has about 70 members paying around \u00a3200 a year, which comes to roughly \u00a314,000. A meagre existence, demonstrating golfing economics at the lower end of Scottish golf.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jock told me the course sits on three old coal mines, with very little topsoil, and that the National Coal Board gave the land to the community when the pits closed. The first part stands up better than I expected. Three coal seams surface on this hillside, running into the ground at nearly 45 degrees. Generations of miners worked along the outcrops with picks, shovels and barrows, leaving three parallel lines of crop pits, which are now the humps and hollows you play over. The Rigside Colliery shaft was sunk right beside the present clubhouse in 1878, and its concrete engine foundations still stick out of the undergrowth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Moly on the 1st. Two caps, one golfer, no one else on the course.<\/strong><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The club was formed in 1922 on the derelict land the pits had left behind, a quarter of a century before the NCB came into being. Whatever the Coal Board did later, it didn\u2019t hand over a golf course. Nor did James Braid lay one out, whatever one online directory says. Douglas Water appears nowhere in the Association of James Braid Courses\u2019 list of his 415 courses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Hells Bunker at the 3rd, the only bunker on the course: a grassed pit with barely a grain of sand, which the scorecard insists is a bunker.<\/strong><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The old workings show most clearly at the 3rd, ‘Hells Bunker’. It is the only bunker on the course, and it contains no sand. The course was laid out around the deepest crop pits, and it\u2019s hard to look into this one without suspecting it was dug by a collier rather than an architect. I found it, and took seven.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The 5th tee: a carry over heather, with a mown strip through the middle. Wide fairways, but this is what waits on either side.<\/strong><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The course is basic but more testing than the price suggests. The fairways are generous, but the rough is heather and thick grass, and anything that goes in stays there. The older members have complained about it..apparently! The greens were poor in a dry June. Several are raised on plateaus and squared off, almost certainly because there was no soil to shape them any other way. The ground still settles, which means constant work on the drainage and on keeping the greens level. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Approaching the 6th, one of the square greens, with the scar of an opencast working on the hills beyond. The coalfield never leaves the view.<\/strong><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The hole names are pure Lanarkshire: Saur Trauchle By, Guid Skelp, Smiddy, Oot o\u2019 Sicht. The 6th is called Water Hole, but I couldn\u2019t find any water on it, making my par perhaps easier than it should be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The 6th, Water Hole: not a drop in sight, and a green baked to straw.<\/strong><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

When the last pit in Douglas Water closed in 1967, much of the population left, and the station, the football club and most of the local services followed. The golf club didn\u2019t. More than a hundred years after it was laid out on the coalfield\u2019s leftovers, it is still run on trust and a part-time mower. Nobody would call it a great course. At \u00a37, that isn\u2019t the point. It\u2019s 3.5\/5 and I\u2019d happily put another envelope in the box.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Facts:<\/em>
Course Type:<\/strong><\/em> Inland hilltop parkland with heather rough<\/em>
Par:<\/strong><\/em> 36 for nine holes (2 par 5s, 5 par 4s, 2 par 3s); 72 over 18<\/em>
Distance:<\/strong><\/em> 2,951 yards (whites)<\/em>
Course Rating \/ Slope:<\/strong><\/em> SSS 69 (18 holes, from the scorecard); no Course Rating or Slope published<\/em>
Course Quality:<\/strong><\/em> 2\/5<\/em>
Moly\u2019s Gross Score:<\/strong><\/em> 48 (13 Stableford points)<\/em>
<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
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Moly’s Douglas Water scorecard. 48.<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Three seams of coal, one sand less ‘bunker’ and a \u00a37 envelope. Price Paid: \u00a37 for nine holes (honesty box)Current Price: Not published. In 2023 it was \u00a37 for nine holes and \u00a312 for eighteen.Value: 3.5\/5 at the price paid; current price to be confirmedMoly\u2019s Score: 48 gross, 13 Stableford points (nine holes) The day […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,34,45,16,19,29,32,9,55,15,31,38,11,2,18,3,28,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3358","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-1901-1945","category-2-star","category-3-5-star","category-9-holes","category-course-architech","category-course-owned-by","category-course-quality","category-course-type","category-greater-glasgow-the-clyde-valley","category-holes","category-members","category-overall-value","category-parkland","category-price-range","category-region","category-under-20","category-unknown","category-when-course-established","post-preview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.scotlandgolfbible.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3358","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.scotlandgolfbible.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.scotlandgolfbible.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.scotlandgolfbible.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.scotlandgolfbible.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3358"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blog.scotlandgolfbible.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3358\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3370,"href":"https:\/\/blog.scotlandgolfbible.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3358\/revisions\/3370"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.scotlandgolfbible.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3358"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.scotlandgolfbible.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3358"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.scotlandgolfbible.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3358"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}