Detailed plans for course submitted

The Courier, 15 January 2005

Plans for a new multi-million pound golf and leisure development near St Andrews took another major step forwards yesterday as detailed plans for the golf course element of the scheme were submitted to Fife Council.

The St Andrews International Golf Club, which intends to develop land at Feddinch to the south-west of the town, intends to follow up the golf course application with a detailed submission for the clubhouse complex within the next few weeks.

The venture will result in a new private club with prestigious leisure facilities and luxury residential accommodation, essentially aimed at the overseas market.

Yesterday one of the firm’s directors, Ewan McKay, delivered the golf course plans to County Buildings in Cupar, along with Stewart Rogers, of the South Queensferry-based Paul Hogarth Company.

He said afterwards he hopes work can begin on the course, maintenance buildings and practice facilities as soon as detailed consent is granted, hopefully in late April.

As part of the outline planning consent already granted for the development, work cannot actually start on site until it has been demonstrated to the planning authority that £7 million-worth of committed funding is in place.

Mr McKay said, though, that the directors of the venture are confident that this funding will be finalised in the very near future.

The course has been designed by former Open champion Tom Weiskopf, who recently described the opportunity he had been given as a “dream come true.”

Weiskopf, who runs his company Weiskopf Designs from his base in Scottsdale, Arizona, has been responsible for the design of 55 golf courses across the world since he went into business in the late 1980s.

Among his triumphs is the now world famous course at Loch Lomond, and he has expressed the hope the Feddinch venture will be equally successful.

The developers hope to have the project completed in time for the Open Championship at Carnoustie in 2007.