Scotland's New Championship-ready Links; Kingsbarns

Alister Nicol, golf.com columnist, 20 October 1999

No need for Tiger Woods, Mark O'Meara, David Duval and others to acclimatize in Ireland for next year's Open. Remember the name, Kingsbarns Golf Links. Barring a new Ice Age or some other cataclysmic upheaval the Fife course with a regal title will figure large in the annals of the royal and ancient game in years to come.

That is no wild prediction. It is a statement of fact.

Although the genuinely majestic links, which is American-owned and designed, will not officially open for play until immediately after the Millennium Open, it's a cast-iron certainty Kingsbarns will host top-of-the-line professional tournaments.

There's already talk of the possibility of it being home to a revived Scottish Open as soon as 2001. A platoon of PGA European Tour has already visited the site -- and left mighty impressed. So too did Tom Lehman, who popped over during last week's Alfred Dunhill Cup.

The course, with the North Sea in view on each and every one of the 18 holes and in play on one, has been created with tournaments in mind. And it's a beauty.

In fact it would be no surprise if one day down the line it staged an Open Championship. Yes, it really is that good and only a few miles from St. Andrews, the spiritual home of golf's oldest championship.

The R&A are constantly evaluating suitable venues to add to their Open rota. Now there is one -- just six short miles from their HQ. The game's custodians are fully aware of the new gem that is currently being polished. They've even contributed some funding for the finest new course I've clapped eyes upon.

And lest you think I am being carried away here's what recently retired secretary and current R&A captain Sir Michael Bonallack has to say about it: "It is one of the last true seaside links capable of development in Scotland. It is a wonderful course and though man-made has a totally natural feel. I have no doubt the course has championship potential."

And already infrastructure to support a tented village is being installed.

The course has been two years in the making and is the brainchild -- and dream -- of Californians Parsinen and Dunkley.

It was Art, a one-time property developer, who gave me and another hard-bitten, far-traveled Scottish golf scribe a guided tour a couple of days after Lehman had popped along.

Gob-smacked, bowled over, knocked out. Jock MacVicar and myself were all of the above and then some. The course looks as it has been there forever and, indeed, that's partially true. Golf was played on a short, nine-hole course from the late 18th century until the start of World War II when the military commandeered it.

Indeed that land, and the adjoining beach and seashore, were heavily utilized during the build-up to the D-Day landings in Normandy in 1944.

No suggestion of warlike activities nowadays however. For hostility read tranquillity. It is a blissful and sublime spot reeking with history which exists in harmony with an age-old coastal walk.

Believe me the shoreline, the rumpled fairways, the bucolic beauty will make for compulsive viewing on the TV screens of the world.

During some of the early earth-moving works a mummy dating back 3000 years was uncovered! Art Dunkley and Mark Parsinen are to be congratulated on their vision and determination as well as their persuasive ability to secure a 198-year lease on the land from a local farmer.

"Mere words cannot convey just how extraordinary the place is. It must be seen to be believed. And once seen it will never be forgotten." --R&A captain Sir Michael Bonallack

Their forging of a special relationship with the R&A is no mean feat either. From the outset the quiet Americans and their countryman co-designer Kyle Phillips determined on a softly-softly approach to the local community.

They rocked no boats, rubbed nobody the wrong way and succeeded in doing and saying all the right things.

They have certainly created a lollapalooza of a seaside links, one to rival any I've come across.

Art Dunkley is not a man to shout from the rooftops. He's much too well mannered for that. But he was seriously discomfited to hear about Tiger and Co. spending prime pre-Carnoustie '99 time playing Irish links courses this summer.

While admiring the promotional skills of the Irish Tourist Board he, as an American, would much rather his countrymen had prepared for the Open in the Home of Golf.

In future they will be afforded that opportunity--at Kingsbarns Links. And what better time than the year 2000 when the Open is to be held just along the Fife coast?

I've a hunch that's where Lehman will be and a further suspicion that before too long every player on the PGA Tour will have heard of the greatest new seaside links in golf. And a pay-and-play one at that.

Remember the name Kingsbarns Links. You will read and hear a lot more about it in the years and decades to come. It is special -- in spades. The "Wow Factor" hurtles off the scale.