Luxury facility soon to grace St Andrews

Bradley S Klein, Golfweek, 30 October 1999

St Andrews, Scotland - Overseas visitors to the home of golf will soon have a chance to feel at home, thanks to the creation of the new St. Andrews Golfing Society. The private venture involves a luxury clubhouse, shuttle service, conference facilities, and health spa and museum, all housed in a four-story building under construction behind the 17th green of the Old Course. The facility is slated to open in May 2000, in time for next year's British Open at St. Andrews.

According to Michael Lunn, chairman of the £8 million ($12.8 million) undertaking, members will get five-star treatment.

"Our benchmark is the Turnberry Hotel," said the Scottish businessman, who made his reputation in corporate recovery before turning his attention to the new golf club.

"Research we've done over several years," he said, "showed that when visitors come to St. Andrews they miss a feeling of belonging to the town. They're off to Troon or somewhere, with no sense of ownership or that they belong to anything. They want to feel more a part of the town -- more than just the experience of walking onto the Old Course."

The project is well-timed, as St. Andrews is going through a golf boom unseen in a century. In the mid-1990s, the municipality opened a new links, its fifth, called Strathtyrum. At the same time, the Old Course Hotel built a semiprivate parkland layout called the Dukes Course. Ten miles south along Fife's southeast coast lies the former fishing village of Crail, now a popular tourist destination. There, Crail Golf Club added a second layout in 1997. Halfway between Crail and St. Andrews, the Kingsbarns Golf Links will open next summer, with every hole overlooking the North Sea. And ground has just been broken on a 36-hole project called St. Andrews Bay two miles south of town, also along the North Sea.

With demand for the Old Course at an all-time high, hopeful golfers who lose out on a tee time lottery have limited recourse -- arrangements through private tour operators, sometimes at a very high premium. Or they can arrange for play on the area's other courses, where tee times are more accessible.

While St. Andrews Golfing Society will not have its own layout, it will assist with reservations on area courses and work with tour operators, hotels, and the Links Management Trust (the body responsible for managing the public layouts at St. Andrews, including the Old Course).

What members will enjoy is valet parking, a leisure club, spa and pool, fine and casual dining, a cigar lounge, a travel service, access to local accommodations not normally on the open market, plus the use of conference, business and secretarial facilities.

The centerpiece of the club is a building that represents an unusual lease arrangement whereby St. Andrews Golfing Society will share use of the building with St. Andrews University, which owns the land at the main entrance road to the town where the club will be located. The building's two lower floors will contain meeting space and a museum that will display some of the university's treasured archives. A gift shop will offer prints and reproductions, and make them available internationally. The top two floors will be for members only.

Individual membership will cost £1,100 ($1,760) plus a £300 ($480) annual fee. Members not planning on using the facility in a given year can assign individual rights to a friend or relative for a 12-month period. Corporate memberships, at a £5,000 ($8,000) joining fee plus £1,000 ($1,600) annual subscription, will include rights to eight named associates.

A membership drive starting in mid-November will incorporate four elements: direct mailing, negotiations with tour operators and hotel chains, the launch of a commercial Web site (www.standrews-int.com) and a monthlong advertising campaign to air on The Golf Channel.