Carrickvale Golf Club not in danger of following Carrick Knowe out of business

Carrickvale is not in danger of joining its neighbour Carrick Knowe in being forced to close its doors, according to the Capital club's secretary.

Carrickvale have been five-time winners of the Dispatch Trophy since 2007

The two clubs shared the Edinburgh Leisure-managed Carrick Knowe course in the same way that a handful of clubs do at the Braids.

It was Carrick Knowe that was once the healthier of the two clubs but it shut its doors on Sunday after the membership had dropped to just 20.

“Not in the forseeable future,” said John Pow, the Carrickvale secretary, in reply to being asked if there was a threat of the same thing happening at the surviving club.

“It’s not been easy, to be fair. We have taken a lot of steps to reduce expenses and we are running a 
pretty tight ship at the moment. We changed our licence to a full bar licence a couple of years ago and, basically, functions keep us going.

“We have a full-time barman at the moment and, if we were losing functions and not getting that income, then we’d have a decision to make there. But we are not even close to any issues.

“We have steps we could take. We could easily become a weekend club, which we are not at the moment. We are still open during the week. There is a long way to go before we would be concerned at all.”

Eight of the last members left at Carrick Knowe have joined Carrickvale, five-time winners of the Dispatch Trophy since 2007.

“We have an enthusiastic playing membership,” added Pow. “We have a reasonable membership and two-thirds are regular players. I wouldn’t say we are on the up but, at the same time, I certainly wouldn’t say we are on a downward spiral.

“Because we don’t have jurisdiction over the course or cost of permits – Edinbirgh Leisure charge rate for passes or weekly daily golf – we can’t make ourselves more attractive like private courses can.

“We don’t include that in the membership. They have to pay that themselves to Edinburgh Leisure and we have no control over that. We can’t reduce membership as everything else is going up, including the Scottish Golf levy.

“When I started playing, Carrickvale was the cheap, reasonable option at a time when there were waiting lists at a lot of clubs. It’s not that option now, though, as you can get a full membership elsewhere for the cost of a permit and our membership fee.”