GOLF courses in the UK have become havens for biodiversity, and not only because of the trees  left in situ when a course was carved out of farmland or a country estate. But also because those trees of all species, shades and descriptions were planted in their thousands to make the course more interesting and challenging from the playability point of view.

And it is worth considering how many urban and suburban golf courses with a surfeit of trees may be the next best thing to woodland for miles around and, as such, eagerly exploited by wildlife. Flowers were traditionally another matter because of the wide range of herbicides used not only on golfing greens but also fairways to keep the grass sward ‘pure’. The ‘rough’ is another matter, traditionally left to its own devices but now nurtured as havens for an array of wild flowers and increasingly leading to Britain’s golf courses also becoming a haven for butterflies.

One such course in the South Downs National Park has been called a ‘butterfly haven’ after no less than 34 species, including quite rare ones like Adonis blue (Polyommatus bellargus), brown hairstreak (Thecla  betulae) and grizzled skipper (Pyrgus malvae), were recorded. 

Groundsmen at Pyecombe Golf Club, near Brighton in West Sussex, have been working in conjunction with the National Park Authority for a number of years to create the ideal habitat for wildflowers and insects which visit them. A trio of surveys were recently performed by consultant ecologist Neil Hulme. 

He said: “It’s a good job I’m not a golfer, because I would deliberately spend the round of golf inside the rough.” That’s because the ‘rough’ at Pyecombe course has a dense cover and an amazing variety of wildflowers, and, of course, insects which visit them, including more than half of the 59 butterflies which can be found in these islands. 

But let’s not forget the trees because they are essential to the well-being and survival of many butterflies, including the rare purple emperor butterfly (Apatura iris). Its larvae feed on great sallow (Salix caprea), which is also called goat willow, while the adult butterflies feed on aphid honey dew and sap high in the canopies of English oak trees. Even better news is the increasing number of redundant golf courses now being rewilded and turned into eco-parks. Some of the latest examples are in Cheshire, Sunderland in north-east England and Exeter in Devon.