Golf courses around the world

The first Golf course was probably a rough grassed, heather strewn Scottish mountainside if the legend that the game of golf was started by Scottish shepherds is to be believed. Early golf courses were generally built on land close to the sea which was not ideally suited to agriculture due to the salt laden winds that swept across it most of the time. This type of golf course is known as a links course. As the game grew in popularity wealthy landowners would construct golf courses on their land away from the sea using trees and lakes to recreate the hazards found naturally on links golf courses. Many of these new owners of golf courses would invite friends and relatives to form a golf club to provide playing partners and to organize competitions among the golf club membership.

Nowadays, all over the world there are more and more public golf courses that any golfer can pay a green fee and play a round on a decent but public golf course. Many golf clubs that were once privately owned and which restricted play to members only have had to open their golf courses to the general public on a ‘pay and play’ basis to help cover the overheads and to keep costs down for the golf club membership.

There are just under two hundred countries in the world very few of which don’t have at least one golf course or at least plans to build a golf course in the near future. Many countries vying for a slice of the ever growing tourism market have targeted golf tourism as a very lucrative method of obtaining maximum earnings per visitor thereby reducing the need for massive investment in infrastructure. Golf club members tend to spend more per day than most other visitors, thus a good golf course or preferably a number of golf courses within easy reach of one another make sound commercial sense for any country looking for quality golf tourism.

Golf in Spain