Golf Week, 1 May 1999

Anyone who doubts the sacred nature of golf at St. Andrews need only stand at the first tee of the Old Course, awaiting word from the starter to “play away, please.”

The combination of nervous excitement and awe at the gravity of the moment shakes golfers of all nations to their core. Here have stood Old Tom Morris, Joyce Wethered, Bobby Jones and Seve Ballesteros. Here, too, have stood visitors from every social class and of every skill level, all engaged in the same compelling task: Steering a ball around the hollows, bunkers and massive putting surfaces on the game’s most compelling ground.

Enter developers, interested in exploiting the brand name of St. Andrews to promote their own products (see Bradley S. Klein’s story here).

Kingsbarns, a pure links course six miles out of town and devoid of housing and conference facilities, already is well into construction and will open next year. Its design and low-impact infrastructure – only a clubhouse building – assure its fit within the environment.

Other projects – Kingask, Feddinch and Scooniehill – are of a very different order. They’re much closer to town, and they include various combinations of hotel space, conference rooms and real estate.

The character of this medieval university town already is under siege by golfers and visitors who crowd its limited roads and streets in search of Scottish tradition and heritage. Evidence of unbridled development already can be found in the form of the Old Course Hotel, an ungainly block of concrete and glass that mars the landscape along the Old Course’s Road Hole (No. 17). In their currently proposed form, the Kingask, Feddinch and Scooniehill projects don’t fit much better.

The fate of St. Andrews has been entrusted to a handful of regional development committees and local heritage societies. They must carefully weigh both the economic and cultural impact of any new golf development. Let’s hope they do their job judiciously, with honor and respect for the sacred nature of St. Andrews. The last thing the town needs is to suffer the fate of so many American golf resort destinations whose ecology, traditions and special feel were destroyed by unrestricted development.