As Lybster Golf Club marks its centenary year, John Davidson speaks to some of the dedicated bank of volunteers who maintain the community-run course
Regular golfers at the Lybster course before the club was formed in 1926.
A community-run golf club in Caithness is teeing up to mark its 100th year, proving that the grassroots of the sport are as strong as ever.
Rather than a lavish new clubhouse, Lybster makes do with the more informal hut that was once a ticket office on the Wick and Lybster Light Railway.
The station here used to be the most distant on the entire network from London, being 738 rail miles from Euston. The service was connected to the far north line at Wick when it opened in 1903 – cutting through an informal area used by local golfers at the time.
Lybster was a busy herring port in the mid-19th century, attracting a mercantile and professional class, including shopkeepers, bank agents, teachers and ministers.
The imposition of the railway cutting across their makeshift course led to the setting out of a nine-hole course at the Reisgill Burn, about half a mile from the village, in 1905.
The club hut is the old ticket office on the former Lybster and Wick railway line.
However, it was not until 1926 that golf in Lybster gained a permanent home. Local landowner DH Sutherland leased two parcels of land – the Black Park and the adjacent Market Park – despite the area being bisected by the railway. Greens and bunkers were constructed, and the newly constituted Lybster Golf Club opened, attracting 160 members.
One hundred years on, the club is still run by local people who share a passion for people enjoying the sport. Their ambition is not to turn Lybster into a championship venue, but to encourage more people, of all ages, to get out and enjoy a round in the fresh air.
Magnus Ryrie, the club secretary and one of around 15 people who make up the voluntary committee, explained that Lybster is one of the very few courses that has no employees.
“There are a lot of nine-hole clubs in the north of Scotland but a lot of them employ greenkeepers and some form of staff to maintain their courses,” he said.
“We’re one of the few that have no actual employees. The whole thing is volunteer run.
In the swing of things at Lybster. Picture: Angus Mackay Photography
“It’s all because people in the community see it as part of the community; they’re doing it for the community and they enjoy doing it.
“When they see people out and they’ve got smiles on their faces on the course and they love playing on it, they get a bit of a buzz from just that.”
Their aim in this 100th year is to get more people to get that same enjoyment out of playing golf locally, coming together to enjoy the exercise and the social aspects of spending time on the course.
Since taking a dive after World War II, after which the club just managed to survive thanks to the dedication of a small band of helpers, membership has steadily risen and reached triple-figures again just in time for the centenary year.
Magnus explained: “The membership two years ago was about 70 and then it went to 85 and then it went up to 101 going into the centenary year.
Some of the Lybster Golf Club members outside the hut in April 2025.
“It was sitting at 99 up until December and I was saying, ‘please just let there be one more, let there be one more’. I was even going to just give someone a complimentary membership just to get 100!”
The celebrations tee off on Saturday, April 11, with the Centenary Captain’s Challenge Invitational, which will see players from clubs around the north take part.
Gordon Morrison, competition secretary and another of Lybster’s key volunteers, said: “There are either two or four players from each club coming to visit and play at Lybster. We’ve had quite a good response from as far as Moray, Nairn, Dornoch, Brora, even Eriskay. Inverness Kings Golf Club, Bonar Bridge, Reay, Wick, as well as two different teams from Orkney, from South Ronaldsay and Stromness, and from Ullapool will take part.
“We’re probably going to have about 36 players there. It’s just to celebrate the 100-year anniversary and that will kick off our season. It’s something that we can build on every year – my idea was that whoever would win this captain’s invitational would then host it the following year, and so on.”
Golfers get a great view from Lybster. Picture: Angus Mackay Photography
It’s not the only event marking this special year, as the club will also be hosting a Ryder Cup-style tournament called the Lyber Cup, played between Wick and Lybster, later this month, as well as hosting the Ulbster Cup later in the year. The latter contest is played between clubs at Lybster, Wick, Thurso and Reay.
”Lybster actually won the Ulbster Cup in 2024,” Gordon said. “We’re a very small club in comparison with the others. I was actually one of the players that was playing, so I find it quite an achievement, considering I’d only been playing three or four years by that stage. It was a great weekend.”
The Lyber Cup was first played about 35 years ago and ran for around 10 years after being instigated by Eric Larnach, who will be taking part as a team member for Lybster this year.
Another notable event is a Hickory Sticks competition which will challenge the golfers to play with traditional wooden clubs. “That’ll be quite an event, I would imagine!” Gordon suggests.
Golfers on the Reisgill course around 1905, prior to the formation of the official Lybster club.
It’s not just competitions that are key to a successful centenary year, though. The club wants to encourage more youngsters to join its membership and has been working with the village primary school to facilitate access to the course for the pupils.
“We started it with come and try sessions last year and we’re building on it more this year,” Magnus said. “We ended up last year with 20 junior members, having started with about two, so it was a really, really good result and we’re wanting to continue to build on it this year.
“We’ve got the primary school which is just next door and one of the classes is visiting the golf club on April 29, so our junior coaching team are going to be there to do a couple of hours with the class.”
The club is also hoping to fundraise during the year for a new practice area which will be aimed at juniors who want to learn the sport, but will also be available to all members and visitors.
“We want to buy a practice area for the juniors, so we can put in proper nets, a dummy green, a bunker and they can practise before going out on the course, because we haven’t really got a facility like that at the moment,” Magnus said.
The line of the old railway can clearly be seen in the shot of the course from above. Picture: Angus Mackay Photography
“Our intention is to get the maximum number of people actually playing and enjoying the game. We’re not looking at being like Dornoch and building a £13 million clubhouse – that’s not our intention, we just want to make it a nice, enjoyable experience for everyone.”
That atmosphere is summed up in the club hut – worth slightly less than Dornoch’s new venture – which Magnus explained is similar to the old station building at Thrumster that people might be more familiar with.
“It’s a bigger version of that,” he said. “It’s an old building with no heating. There’s not a cafe or anything. We say to people, if you’re playing a game of golf and you want a cup of coffee, go in and make yourself a cup of coffee.
“If we changed that you’d lose a bit of the atmosphere and feel of the place. So it’s an honesty box – there might not be anyone there but if you want a cup of coffee, go in and help yourself. If there are members there, especially the older members, they’ll sit and tell stories about the golf club’s history and things like that.”
Gordon confirms: “It is, it’s a lovely, friendly atmosphere. Everybody that comes to Lybster has their comments on the hospitality that they receive. It’s a very friendly atmosphere and a nice place to be.”
The shorter course also makes it an appealing prospect for visitors, including tourists who may be passing on their way to Orkney or doing the North Coast 500.
“Normally someone goes out on a golf course for five hours, but we can get around in an hour and a half, two hours,” Magnus said. “It’s like a stop off, an enjoyable game.
“For folk doing the North Coast 500 or going to get a ferry, it’s a perfect stop-off to kill a couple of hours. We’re trying to tell that sort of story as well, and encourage slow tourism.
“If they stop with us they might go to the cafe in the village, they might go to the shop in the village, they might go down to Waterlines. That’s how we aim to help the community side of it, as well as making it affordable.”
The club makes no profit and is happy to keep it that way. “It’s literally just what we take in we put straight back into the golf course and we try to keep our price as low as possible to get as many members of the community, and those in the wider Caithness area, to join the club and enjoy the social side of it.”
The centenary year will culminate in an end-of-season gala dinner at Mackay’s Hotel in Wick, with members of Lybster and other clubs invited to round off a successful 100th year of the historic club.
Lybster Golf Club key centenary events:
• April 11 Centenary Captain’s Challenge Invitational
• April 18 Lyber Cup
• June 7 Hickory Sticks competition
• June 13-14 Centenary Open
• August 1 Mackays Hotel Lybster Open
• August 16 Seniors Open
• September 5-6 Ulbster Cup
• September 19 Centenary friendly versus South Ronaldsay
• September 20 Mixed Open
• October 24 Centenary Gala Dinner, Mackay’s Hotel, Wick
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