You may well have read and seen the recent publicity surrounding Royal North Devon Golf Club’s environmental stand in banning the use of plastic tees on their course from the start of 2020. Well now other Devon and Cornwall based clubs can join them in doing the same.

A club statement said “The Royal North Devon Golf Club, near Bideford, is the oldest in England and took the decision at a recent committee meeting to allow only wooden tees. Plastic tees are more likely to harm the birds and animals we share our wonderful course with".

Committee member Richard Hughes continues “"We want to keep the golf course as clean and natural as possible. Nature has been giving us a hard time recently and we want to placate it to some extent. Birds pick up the plastic tees that are often garishly coloured and they drop them all over the place, including on the beach and in the sea. We have found tees in bird’s nests before."

Wooden tees are usually white or wooden coloured meaning they are not so attractive to birds and decompose over time.

Moving forward and complementing their decision the club has now engaged with Oceanteegolf.com and are the first Club to sign up to their “crowd initiative” where they are offering to supply 25 Clubs (minimum) with 100,000 bamboo golf tees for £850+vat.

As long as 24 more clubs are found then this priority price is available to all clubs, if the clubs are not found then the process stops and no clubs are liable for any cost at all.

RND say “The alternative tee is a sustainable and durable product to counter the argument that a plastic tee lasts for ages and a wooden one is discarded after one shot. The bamboo tees manage exactly this and as a forward thinking Golf Club we would like to bring this opportunity to buy bamboo tees for around a penny each to all the Golf Clubs in the South West".

And in keeping with the environmental theme Oceanteegolf will donate 25% of the profits from this initiative to UK charities focused on tackling plastic pollution.

If your club is interested in learning more please visit https://oceanteegolf.com/ or email Ed Sandison on ed@oceanteegolf.com