Lighthouse Golf Course
By Sue Clark on Sep 20, 2008 in The Light Side 
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Now here is a factoid I didn’t know. On Fair Isle, a birdwatcher’s paradise 25 miles south of Shetland Island, Scotland, sits two lighthouses at opposite ends of the island. To while away the hours in the 1960s, the lighthouse keepers built a golf course (this is Scotland, birthplace of the game) near the South Lighthouse.
Created with broomsticks for flags, and pudding tins for holes, the six hole course allowed the keepers to stay out of the Scotch whiskey (another thing Scotland is famous for). Well, the lighthouses were automated, and the keepers left. The golf course became overgrown and forgotten.
But then along comes a gentleman, Tom Hyndman, and his family (wife Liz and 7-year old son Henry) from New York, who won an international contest and moved his family to Scotland’s Fair Isle as the new owner of the Laird’s Hall. Nice prize, huh? And after awhile, he began to hear tales of this former golf course, and decided to recreate it, although with a bit more than broomsticks and pudding cans.
Purchasing all his supplies off Ebay, the course is now a bit more challenging. On some holes, you have to hit over the sea onto small peninsulas. And then there’s the sheep you have to play around. And the seabirds. If there is a protected bird on one of the holes, play is automatically suspended.
“It’s fun. It’s a very humble golf course, but I am a sure that when golf started, it was probably just like this. When I moved to Fair Isle I remember saying that I wouldn’t be one of those Americans who was going to move to Scotland to drink Scotch and play golf. And I didn’t really drink Scotch before I got here either. But, God help me, that’s exactly what I’m doing,” said Tom Hyndman.
The island is one of the most important bird (or is it birdie?) observatories in Great Britain, and Hyndman has the full support of the National Trust.
Complete story can be read over at the Scotsman.Com.
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