Golfer's dream gives historic course new life

Jeremy Watson, Scotland on Sunday, 9 July 2000

A forgotten treasure of Scottish golf that was destroyed during the Second World War has been restored and will reopen this month.

The course, at Kingsbarns in the East Neuk of Fife, is the 12th oldest golf course in the UK with written records stretching back to 1793. But the nine-hole course just six miles from the Old Course at St Andrews, was wiped out when the land was commandeered for military manoeuvres in 1939.

It was feared that Hitler’s forces might invade Britain along the largely undefended Fife coastline. When the invasion threat receded, the land was used for bombing practice.

The ground has now been reshaped by American businessman Mark Parsinen into a classic links course that he hopes will become one of the great venues of European golf. The new 7,100-yard championship layout incorporates the old holes.

More than 4,500 rounds have already been booked, even though the course will not open until the start of Open Championship week on July 17.

"It is already proving incredibly popular," said 51-year-old Parsinen. "People from the US are already making pilgrimages here even before it is open. There isn’t a day goes by that we don’t have to break off to show someone round."

The original course was the pride of the village. Records held at a clubhouse in Crail reveal matches being played there between rival teams from Kingsbarns and nearby Crail in the early 19th century. Crail played in red jackets while Kingsbarns played in blue.

One member was Robert Haig of Seggie, the grandfather of Field Marshal Earl Haig, the commander of British forces in the First World War who was an accomplished golfer.

But it was the Second World War that drove the Kingsbarns course off the map. In 1945 when the Ministry of Defence offered villagers the choice of restoring the course or building a new community hall, they chose the latter. The members of the Kingsbarns Golf Club decamped to Crail.

For more than 50 years, the land was used for grazing cattle. But in the mid-1990s a local consortium of businesses tried and failed to raise finance to bring it back to life.

The rights to the land were eventually secured by Parsinen, who retired at the age of 41 after selling his computer company in California.

A golf enthusiast since his youth, he applied to join a club in Sacramento but was told there was a five-year waiting list. With the help of friends he decided to build his own course in California.

When a course designer friend told him about Kingsbarns he flew over to take a look. "Within 20 minutes of getting here I knew that this piece of land represented the opportunity to create something really special," he said.

He and his partners raised £5m to build the course to their exacting standards and persuaded the Royal and Ancient Golf Club, based at St Andrews, to lend £1m in exchange for playing rights for their members.

The R&A, which runs the Open Championship, believes the Kingsbarns development will take pressure away from the daily ballot for tee times on the Old Course. Their members will be able to play the course for a fraction of the £85 green fees. Fifers will also be charged less than half price.

Parsinen is convinced that US golfers will be willing to pay the price for true links golf in such a historic location. "What I have tried to create is a superb course of the highest standards but I suppose that if the green fees have been pitched too high we will soon find out," Parsinen said.

Local golfers now hope to revive the annual Crail v Kingsbarns fixture.

"It is expensive and really aimed at foreigners who are prepared to pay £85 a round, but it looks awesome and is a great achievement," said Ron Stewart, secretary of the Kingsbarns Golf Club.

One of the few Kingsbarns residents who played on the course before the war is 78-year-old Willie Murray.

He remembers as a young boy spending his Saturday afternoons in the 1930s earning half a crown as a caddie.

"It was shame that we lost the course all those years ago," he said, "and it’ll be good to get it back again."