Drumoig golf rescue stymied at final hole

Bruce Robbins, The Courier, 3 March 2004

A deal that would have resurrected the Scottish National Golf Centre at Drumoig has collapsed, it emerged yesterday.

A consortium of business men thought they had reached an agreement with the official receiver, accountant KPMG, to buy the centre after it failed last year with substantial debts.

However, their hopes of reviving it as one of only two David Leadbetter golf academies in Europe have been dashed after the landlord invoked a special clause of “irritancy” in the lease.

Irritancy refers to the right a landlord has to end a lease if the tenant has breached any conditions. In this case, it is understood that the fact the centre went into receivership may have triggered the procedure.

The landlord, Drumoig Ltd, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Dundee-based civil engineering group Torith Ltd, has refused to accept the consortium’s bid and the centre, built at a cost of £4.5 million and partly funded by golf club subscriptions, is now likely to revert to Drumoig Ltd.

Receiver Blair Nimmo, head of KPMG corporate recovery in Scotland, said the consortium had emerged as the preferred bidder from a number of interests that had been expressed in the centre.

He said, “The landlord has refused to accept the assignation of the leases to this party and has now also served formal notices of irritancy in relation to the leases of the golf centre and associated offices.

“It is with great disappointment that we have had to make today’s announcement having had a potential purchaser in position to trade the golf centre as a golf facility.

“We would like to thank all parties for their co-operation.”

The centre, which offered state-of-the-art teaching, coaching and practice areas, including an indoor practice area, a gymnasium and fitness room, went into receivership on September 25 with the loss of 13 jobs.

Bruce Linton, one of the business men in the consortium, said KPMG had put a closing date on the sale. “There would appear to be an argument between Torith and the receiver and it seems we are the innocent party in the whole episode,” he said.

“We had a very good scheme in place that would have seen the centre become a David Leadbetter Golf Training Centre.

“Drumoig have now started irritancy proceedings which will most likely result in the lease coming to an end.

Torith managing director Ian Mathers said it would “inappropriate” to comment at this time.