A village gets teed off - Plans for 5 new courses are roiling golf's fabled hometown

Kevin Cullen, Boston Globe, 1 August 1999

St. Andrews, Scotland -- In the 15th century, there were so many golf balls flying around the open, windswept fields here that King James II briefly banned the game on Sundays because his archers couldn't practice.

Since then, however, it would have been heresy to suggest, as the king did in 1457, that there were too many golf courses and too many golfers in the town that is the birthplace of golf.

But that is just what some of the 14,500 residents here believe, and they have mounted what may be a quixotic attempt to prevent their quaint, medieval university town from being turned into what they see as a tacky golf theme park with perpetual gridlock.

Tomorrow, the town's community council will decide whether to launch a legal challenge to block the construction of a hotel, two courses, and a conference center on what used to be Kingask farm, a 500-acre tract that runs along St. Andrews Bay with breathtaking views of the town and the Firth of Tay.

There are already six golf courses in St. Andrews, including the proudly public Old Course, arguably the world's most famous, and the snooty private Royal & Ancient Golf Club, headquarters of the game's governing body. About 300,000 visitors come here every year, many of them to enter the daily lottery for the privilege of playing the Old Course. About one in five gets picked.

As the popularity of golf continues to soar internationally, there is no shortage of developers who believe that the demand to play here will only increase. Besides the Kingask development, there are two other proposals in the pipeline that would add three more courses near the town.

For Frank Riddell, the mild-mannered chemistry professor who has emerged as the unlikely leader of those trying to stop the Kingask project, the implications are stark.

"If we can't stop this one, we can't stop any,'' he said. "The town as we know it will cease to exist. The goose that lays the golden golf egg will be killed.''

For Iain MacKinnon, the local representative of St. Andrews Bay Development Co., the American-based company that is behind the $80 million Kingask project, the 300 jobs and what he called ``a first-class facility'' far outweigh claims about the streets and the Old Course being clogged with more golfers.

Riddell and MacKinnon live four doors away from each other. They are not on speaking terms.

At first glance, this is just a variation on the NIMBY argument, altered slightly to NOMBN, Not On My Back Nine. But on closer inspection, this is not just a battle over a few new golf courses but a war over who owns St. Andrews, and it is a war of epic proportions.

It has split families, made neighbors enemies, and reignited the smoldering class warfare epitomized by the schism between university types and townies. It has, says Craig Nisbet, who runs the weekly newspaper, the St. Andrews Citizen, "divided this town like never before.''

This is a small, friendly place, where everybody knows everybody else's business, or thinks they do. There are two levels of conversation: public and private. Private ones reveal the extent of the split here. People's English accents are commented on, as is the length of time they have lived here. Class distinctions are held up as either an indictment or validation of character.

Those most opposed to or most in favor of the Kingask development say they do not want to cast aspersions on the motives of others, but they invariably do.

Those opposed to the development are derided as hypocritical snobs who are biting that hand that has long fed St. Andrews. They are accused of wearing rose-colored glasses, of extolling the town's university and medieval architecture while ignoring the empty shops and shabby apartments where students are crammed in to maximize profits for university-connected landlords.

Those who support the Kingask project are dismissed as shallow, money-hungry Judases, willing to sell the town's character for a few pieces of silver.

Behind the stereotypes, however, are strongly held beliefs on both sides.

Sitting in his modest university office, somewhere between a driver and a three-wood from the Old Course, Riddell talks passionately about preserving the character of the town, one that is as much if not more rooted in its medieval heritage as in its place in golf history. As chairman of the community council, he has molded a grass-roots movement that looks at something other than the bottom line.

St. Andrews was once the ecclesiastical capital of Scotland, and its university was founded in 1410, the first in Scotland and the third in Britain, after Oxford and Cambridge. Like Oxford and Cambridge, the St. Andrews campus dominates the town, its buildings extending everywhere. Those buildings and other examples of medieval architecture are already crumbling under the weight of tourist traffic, Riddell says.

The Fife Council, which represents the region, overrode local opposition to the Kingask project, pointing to the 300 jobs that will be created. But Riddell and others accuse the council of ignoring its own standards on controlling development in the rush to create jobs. They point bitterly to the fact that none of the Fife Council members who approved the plan come from St. Andrews. And they say that because there are only about 650 people in the St. Andrews area unemployed, the jobs aren't needed here.

"They should put it in another part of Fife that really needs the jobs,'' said Riddell.

Riddell bristles at suggestions the opponents are snobs. If anything, he says, they are looking out for the little guy. He says the new hotel and conference center will attract mainly rich Americans whose presence will make it even harder for locals to get on the Old Course.

"Scotland is a very egalitarian country,'' he said. "They're going to come in here and push locals aside. It's going to create resentment. The only reason the people behind Kingask are coming here is to cash in on St. Andrews' name. All this is about is money. There are things more important than money, such as quality of life.''

Sitting in his Jeep wagon, dragging on a Camel and looking out over the 18th fairway of the Old Course, MacKinnon is candid in reply.

"If the accusation is we're trying to make money, we stand guilty as charged,'' he said. "What's wrong with that? This town exists on tourism and inward investment. There is nothing for the young people here except the hospitality industry. I know because my two daughters have had to move away to find work.

"This place is not a little enclave, sheltered from the rest of the world. It has to deal with the real world, real economics. It has marketed itself as the home of golf, and it has been successful. This is a project of the highest quality. There's no public funding. It can only be good for the community.''

Many of the shops and restaurants here cater to golfers, and it is hard to find people in them who oppose the Kingask project, or think St. Andrews is on the verge of turning into a tacky golf theme park.

Sharon Myles, 38, sells sweaters and other clothing at the Johnstons Woolen Mills, just around the corner from the Old Course. Most of her customers are golfers. She thinks the opposition is small but loud, limited to those who can afford to live with the status quo.

"I don't think 300 more people will hurt the town, but I think they will help the town,'' she said.

Luke Taylor, 18, who works at Aikman's Bistro, says he does not oppose the project in principle, but thinks the process has been flawed. He sees a generational gap in the dispute, with older people opposed and his generation ``generally supportive or indifferent.''

But, he added, "I don't think the public has been informed about the process as it should have been.''

That process is the last hope of the opponents. If they can show the approval was legally flawed, they could put the Kingask project on hold.

It may be too late, however, to stop the development, or repair the rifts in familial relations. When Ted Brocklebank used the local paper's letters page to vent his opposition to the project, his cousin, Dave Seeley, used the same forum to denounce him as a hypocrite. At the time, Brocklebank was a candidate for the Scottish Parliament. He lost.

"His own cousin attacking him didn't help,'' said Nisbet. "They haven't spoken to each other for months.''

As Nisbet sees it, "The arguments will go on for years, even after the place is up and running.''

Like all golf war stories, this one has legs.