Sheep provide the materials for golf sweaters, but also provided the inspiration for the first bunkers on the earliest links courses.

Published: 26 October 2009

For many golfers, fleecy golf sweaters could seem reason enough to be thankful for the existence of sheep.

However, golf correspondent for the Times John Hopkins points out the multiple contributions that sheep have made to the sport - even since before its inception.

These include the fact that sheep invented bunkers, he suggests, in as much as their scraping and burrowing into the ground to shelter from the elements left the first sandy hollows in the sport's earliest links courses.

Now they are finding a further application in changing the landscape of courses, again taking their role in the sport beyond providing the raw materials for golf sweaters and wool slipovers.

In their latest contribution, black sheep have been shipped in to the Machrihanish Dunes course in order to mow the fairways in a more environmentally friendly manner.

The news marks a return to traditional mowing techniques, as golf is widely regarded to have been invented by shepherds who inverted their crooks and played on fairways created through the grazing of their flock.

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