WHEN Donald Trump last set foot on one of his Scottish golf courses, in the run-up to his election in 2016, he was greeted by a gaggle of Scots waving Mexican flags in protest at his plans for a border wall. Since then, Mr Trump’s love affair with the country of his mother’s birth has become if anything even more one-sided. Protests are already being planned ahead of his visit to Britain on July 13th, which may include a golfing trip to the north.
Some Scots may want Mr Trump off the links. But the president is emblematic of a much bigger problem facing the sport. At 72, he embodies the common stereotype of a golfer: old, male and a trifle overweight. This stereotype is not entirely false, and helps explain the game’s decline in the land where it was invented.
A fifth of Scotland’s courses closed between 2015 and 2016, even as the number across Europe remained stable. Some 50,000 Scottish members have walked away from their clubs in the past ten years. If the exodus continues,...Continue reading
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