Fourth oldest golf club in the world to allow women

The world’s fourth oldest golf club, Bruntsfield Links Golfing Society, has voted to end its men-only membership policy with immediate effect.

Bruntsfield in Edinburgh becomes the third historic Scottish golf club this year to allow women to join for the first time.

The proposal to admit women members for the first time since the club was established in 1761 was passed with a huge majority.

Earlier this year Panmure Golf Club and Royal Aberdeen ended their men-only policies, with Royal Aberdeen’s club’s secretary / director of golf, Ronnie MacAskill, saying: “I think the days of single-gender clubs are slowly disappearing and we didn’t want to be left behind.”

One of the last major men-only UK golf clubs to admit women

The Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews, Royal Troon and the Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers at Muirfield are other Scottish golf clubs to have also opened their doors to female members in the past five years.

This means that there are now very few men-only golf clubs left in the country. The most prominent ones are Glasgow, Western Gailes and the Royal Burgess Golfing Society. There have been reports that Glasgow is involved in the same process to change its membership criteria, while Royal Burgess, which is the oldest golfing society in the world, scrapped proposals to admit women members in 2013 after less than a third of its membership supported it in a referendum.

According to The Scotsman, there will now be renewed pressure on the club to revisit that proposal.

The vote at Bruntsfield Links, which has hosted numerous leading amateur events over the years, as well as being an Open Regional Qualifying venue for a spell, was passed with a majority of 83.7 per cent, with 67 per cent of all voting members participating.

Club captain Mike Smith said: “This is an historic occasion for the Society with overwhelming support to allow the Society to welcome ladies as members.

“This change, together with a £1.2m investment in our course redevelopment will ensure we are well positioned for the future.”