Sutherlands have long history with Brora golf
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IN 2016, Brora Golf Club and its members will enjoy 12 months of special events to mark their 125th birthday, with two of the north’s golfing associations visiting to host their championships.
The Northern Counties Women’s Golf Association will open the season in May with their championship, and the men’s North District Association will close the season in September with the launch of a new Champion of Champion’s competition.
These two – and all other club-arranged special events – come just a year late for one visitor to Brora in 2015, no other than a great grandson of the club’s very first president in 1891 who, after playing last September, wrote the following letter to the now retired club professional, Brian Anderson.
Darwin Formwork Pty Ltd.
Winnellie, NT 0820
Darwin, Australia.
Sept 15, 2015
Dear Mr Anderson,
Whilst I was in Scotland recently I had the pleasure of playing a couple of rounds on your wonderful course. Unfortunately I was unable to produce the form which may have been expected of a great grandson of George Sutherland, your founding chairman.
I found this obituary amongst my late mother’s possessions (Alix Gordon Sutherland), and thought if you had not already seen it, it may be of some interest to you and the club.
Cheers
Angus Fleming.
The obituary was that of his grandfather which had appeared in the Northern Times following his death in October 1912 and after reading it I, with the help of Ellen Lindsay, set out to trace Angus Fleming’s roots back to the Sutherland family who once owned the Sutherland Arms Hotel in Brora. The Brora Golf Club centenary brochure of 1991 and Hugh Baillie’s book Golf at the Back of Beyond helped our research.
Angus Fleming’s great grandfather, George Sutherland, chaired a group of local gentlemen golfers in the Upper Room of the Brora Library Institute premises on the corner of Gower Street and Rosslyn Street, opposite what is now The Sutherland Inn.
They had gathered with the aim of forming a golf club in the village and Mr Sutherland was appointed the Brora Golf Club’s first president. Other office bearers were appointed and all who were charged with extending the area of ground where golf was already being played – East Brora Farm, which just so happened to be tenanted by the president.
The remainder of the club and course history is fully covered in Mr Baillie’s book but returning to Angus Fleming’s connection to Brora, I set about following his family tree.
President George Sutherland had a family of six – three sons, and three daughters. The oldest son was William George, who followed his father into the family hotel business and the running of the golf club. William George served terms as president of Brora Golf Club in years1922, 1923 and 1928.
In 1938, before the outbreak of the World War II, William George, then in his position of vice president, presented a cup to the club.
Older members still often refer to the "Vice President’s Cup" and the Sutherland family continued to serve the club after the war.
In 1948, William George’s son, William Stuart Sutherland, took on the role as his father and grandfather had done before him and was president for the years 1948 and 1949.
In 1976 William Stuart was guest of honour at the annual presentation of prizes when he was invited to present his father’s cup to Jim Miller who, in winning that year, set the unbelievable course record score of 61 in the first round. George Sutherland’s second son was George Angus Sutherland, a Captain in the Seaforth Highlanders who was awarded the Military Cross during World War I but was killed in action in an artillery barrage, along with 16 of his men, on 27th July 1918 and is buried in St Imoges in France.
His service to his King and country and his memory are commemorated by way of a stained glass window in the parish Church of Scotland.
The third son was Robert Kerr Soutar Sutherland RAMC who, although badly injured, survived the 1914-18 war to become a GP, practising on the Isle of Wight and later at St Margarets Hope in the Orkneys, where he died in 1943 and is buried in the family plot at Clyne Cemetery.
George Sutherland’s three daughters were Christina Alexandra, Louisa and Alix Gordon. The latter married into the Dudgeon family of Crakaig.
Dr Robert Sutherland had a daughter, Alix Gordon Sutherland. She had a career in nursing, serving in WW II before ending up in India and Malaya where, in 1952, she married William Fleming a tea planter.
Their son, Angus, was born in 1953 and sent home for public school education at Blairmore School and Glenalmond College, afterwards emigrating to Australia in 1970 where he now has his own business.
He is married and has two boys, Findlay
and Jock.
