A golf club in Enfield, on the outskirts of London, is at the centre of a national housing debate after architects unveiled proposals to build hundreds of homes on part of its course. The speculative plans by the design firm RCKa would see nine of the course’s 18 holes transformed into a landscape of lakes, allotments and wetlands interspersed with low- to mid-rise mansion blocks. The architects say the scheme would enable the construction of about 650 affordable homes and pay for additional community facilities, including a gym and an upgraded golf clubhouse.
Enfield golf club, where full membership costs up to £1,610 a year, was originally founded in 1893 as a nine-hole course but expanded to 18 holes during the 20th century. The club leases its land from the local council at an annual sum equivalent to about £0.03p a square metre. At the same time, Enfield has one of the highest proportions of residents living in temporary accommodation in the country and, according to government data, is among the worst boroughs in London at building enough new homes to meet rising demand.
“There are six golf courses in the borough, half of which are owned by the local authority,” Russell Curtis, the co-director of RCKa, told me. “Forty-three of the city’s courses are owned by public bodies, totalling an area greater than the borough of Hammersmith & Fulham. When we’re facing homelessness levels that have not been seen in generations, is it right that so much public land is used for the benefit of so few people?”
A phenomenal amount of Britain is used for golf. About a quarter of Europe’s golf courses are in the UK, with the Financial Times estimating that a similar amount of land here is dedicated to golf as domestic buildings. In London alone there are nearly 100 golf courses, together taking up more land than the boroughs of Tower Hamlets and Hackney combined. According to Curtis, golf in the capital uses nearly as much land as every other type of sport put together.
And despite their vast footprint, the number of people who can actually swing clubs on Britain’s fairways is fairly limited. At maximum capacity, an 18-hole course can hold only 72 players in groups of four simultaneously. With a typical round taking about four hours, even if play begins at 8am and finishes at 8pm, only 144 golfers can tee off a day. At their absolute peak, London’s 4,331 hectares of golf courses can therefore provide recreation space for only about 13,472 players over a very long mid-summer day – significantly fewer than the average number of visitors who make use of east London’s 86-hectare Victoria Park every day.
Golf course use is limited in other ways, too. Discounting children, 84% of club members in Britain are men, with 64% aged over 50. Green fees, pricey kit, reliance on cars and rising fuel prices also make it an inherently expensive sport in which to take part. The Professional Golfers’ Association says that “golf has changed” and that the sport is attracting less well off and “more ethnically diverse” players – but only when the users of alternative golfing experiences such as driving ranges, golf simulators and novelty mini golf-themed bars are taken into account.
Ultimately, the pool of people regularly using the nearly 3,000 golf courses across Britain and Ireland remains stubbornly exclusive and, outside a brief post-Covid bump, seems to be shrinking. As the cost of living spirals, some clubs are struggling to make ends meet, with 150,000 fewer club members than there were in 2004 and 92% of clubs planning to raise membership fees to meet increasing costs. Rather than fight to retain their vast land holdings, some stretched club managers are seeing the value in reconfiguring old courses to provide new homes – and fund better facilities that can attract more members.
In Berkshire for example – which has a whopping 46 golf courses, despite being among the smallest counties in England – two nearby clubs decided to stop competing for members and join forces instead. By selling one of their two courses to property developers, the newly consolidated club was able to invest more than £6m upgrading its remaining course one mile to the west with new holes and a state-of-the-art clubhouse.
The resulting housing development, which recently won planning permission despite numerous objections, is sadly an uninspiring identikit cul-de-sac designed entirely around cars. However, with more care, ambition and better architects, the potential to ease Britain’s chronic housing shortage while simultaneously supporting its ailing golf clubs by rethinking their design is clear.
Rethinking golf course design might also reinvigorate the sport for the 21st century. Some golf insiders have already been publicly calling for shorter courses. “We’re sick of the golf industry’s obsession with distance,” James Day, of the golfing brand Sounder, told Golf Business last year. “Playing 18 holes is intimidating and stressful.” Shorter courses requiring less expensive equipment would make the sport more accessible. Meanwhile, Matthew Bailey, the director of Hillier Hopkins, points out that already “more clubs are now offering nine-hole green fees as a way to attract and retain a younger demographic”.
Without change, many of Britain’s gated golf clubs face a future of dreary decline. But by embracing new ideas, forward-thinking clubs could not only modernise the game and raise crucial funds, they could also shake off the sport’s reputation as an elitist, rich man’s pastime and become celebrated drivers of positive local transformation. Rather than higher fences and membership fees, clubs should collaborate with great architects to create neighbourhoods of affordable homes integrated with wildlife, community facilities and public spaces, all made possible by fewer and smaller – but better and more accessible – golf courses for everyone.
Phineas Harper is the chief executive of the charity Open City
