Inverallochy

Under the heading ‘INVERALLOCHY’ the Aberdeen People’s Journal of Saturday 15th November 1884 gave notice that “a golf club has been formed here under the name of the White Links Golf Club. Office-bearers have been appointed and the match days fixed”. There was no mention of the person (or persons) responsible for fashioning the fairways so it’s presumed local fishermen, who comprised most of the club’s early membership, laid out the holes.

An item in The Scotsman on 26 February 1901 mentions “a match played over the links course at Aberdeen between the Inverallochy club and The Victoria club. The Inverallochy club is composed almost entirely of fishermen, and when one remembers that it is only in the brief intervals that occur between the herring and white fishing seasons that the members can obtain practice, it must be admitted they have made rapid strides in the period within which they have taken up the game.”

The following month, the Fraserburgh Herald reported on an exhibition game at Inverallochy between the Balgownie professional Archie Simpson and a couple of the club’s leading players. The year after, The Tatler printed a story that told of “an Inverallochy team completing a tour in which they played the Bonaccord club of Aberdeen, The Edinburgh Burgess Club, and the Royal Musselburgh.”

And on 3rd April 1905, the Aberdeen Daily Journal published an article headlined ‘The Inverallochy Golfers at Sandwich’ which gave details of a match organized by the MP for East Aberdeenshire at Royal St George’s between the golfing members of the House of Commons and the Inverallochy team.

Nevertheless, despite all these indications of a thriving club, things didn’t always run so smoothly, as mentioned in the golfsmissinglinks website:

“The annual business meeting was held in February 1909, D C Dundas presided. The chairman stated that the club had practically been defunct last year owing to the late date at which the fishermen had returned from English waters and other local restrictive causes.

In June 1921 a match was played between the old and new members of the Inveralllochy Golf Club, resulting in a win for the veterans by 13 matches to 12. The final of the Fraser Cup was played in March 1924. This would be the last organised competition to be played on the course until the late 1930s.”

The Aberdeen Daily Journal printed another story on 5th April 1938 under the banner ‘Golf again at Inverallochy: Wild Course to be re-claimed’: “Efforts are to be made to resuscitate the Inverallochy Golf Club, which has been defunct for about fifteen or sixteen years. At a meeting held recently, a committee was formed, and various schemes have been considered for providing funds to restore the course to playing condition again. The club closed down about sixteen years ago, mainly owing to the depression in the fishing industry at the time.”

It’s not known if the club successfully reopened as intended at that time because World War II broke out the following year and the course may well have remained dormant until hostilities ceased in 1945. For sure, locals wanted to claim back the course from grazing sheep in 1951 so local fisherman Robert Duthie purchased the links land at Cairndinnity, Hallmoss and Bankhead from Monsignor Fraser of the Catholic Church, who owned the land. Three years later, the club had its 18-hole course back in full swing and it has never looked back since.