Photo by Peter Dazeley/Getty Images
Starting January 1, 2020, the pro shop at Royal North Devon Club will only sell wooden tees and the club will not allow the use of plastic tees on its golf course. The 155-year-old club, located on common land that is grazed by sheep and horses and adjoins Westward Ho! Beach, adopted the policy to reduce the potential for harming birds and animals, as well as its course maintenance equipment. Royal North Devon is believed to be the first club in England to impose such a ban.
England’s oldest golf course has become the first to ban plastic tees, over fears they are being eaten by wildlife that frequent the property, The Telegraph of London reported.
The 155-year-old Royal North Devon Golf Club, near Bideford, took the decision at a recent committee meeting to only allow wooden tees, The Telegraph reported.
Royal North Devon GC is located on common land that is grazed by sheep and horses, and it adjoins Westward Ho! Beach, The Telegraph reported.
Starting on January 1, 2020, the shop at Royal North Devon will only sell wooden tees and extra “tee bins” will be provided on the course, The Telegraph reported.
The National Golf Club Managers’ Association of England said it believed Royal Devon North was the first club in the country to have banned plastic tees, The Telegraph reported.
“We have all seen golf tees lying around the course, both wooden and plastic,” the club said in a statement announcing the new policy. “The simple fact is that plastic tees are more likely to harm the birds and animals we share our wonderful course with. The greenkeepers will also tell you that they can do a great deal more harm to their equipment than a wooden tee.
“The Committee [has] agreed that from January 1, plastic tees will not be allowed on the golf course,” the club’s statement continued. “So from the start of the new decade, we would like all golfers to only use wooden tees and the pro shop will only supply wooden tees.
“If you see a plastic tee [or a wooden one for that matter] that has been discarded, please place it in one of the ‘tee bins’ provided,” the club’s statement added. “There will soon be more of these for the other tee areas.
“Look after our environment, and hopefully it will be there for many years to come,” the club’s statement concluded.
Part of the Royal North Devon course, which was founded in 1864, was washed away after a storm in 2018, and there are fears more of the course and property could be at risk in the future, The Telegraph reported.
“We want to keep the golf course as clean and natural as possible,” Committee member Richard Hughes told The Telegraph. “Nature has been giving us a hard time recently and we want to placate nature to some extent.”
“Birds pick up the plastic tees that are often garishly colored and they drop them all over the place, including on the beach and in the sea,” Hughes added. “We have found tees in bird’s nests before.”
Tees have always existed in the game, but the first reusable tee was invented in 1892, when a rubber-topped peg was sold commercially as the “perfectum,” The Telegraph reported.
Amateur golfers typically prefer using plastic tees because they don’t break as easily, The Telegraph noted. Wooden tees are usually white or wooden colored, so they are not as attractive to birds and decompose over time.
Tell Us What You Think!
You must be logged in to post a comment.