A panorama of the rugged coastline
St. Andrews over a substantial period of time.” Perhaps the councillors would have been perfectly content without the windfall of publicity and tourist dollars Nicklaus helped generate around the world for five decades. In truth, this title of Honorary Citizen seems a tougher title to achieve than knighthood; in the five years since the council established the award, the number of recipients so honored tallies exactly zero.
he Links Trust expected resistance to their plan, most likely from the proprietors of area golf courses that were not battling over- crowding. The Old Course Hotel had a tough sell getting guests to shuttle up to its Duke’s Course on the outskirts of town, in part because it was a snoozer Peter Thomson design (when Herb Kohler bought the hotel in 2004, he promptly ordered a major upgrade), but more so because guests who stay on the links want to play on the links. Up the road at St. Andrews Bay, the largely uninspiring Torrance and Devlin courses made the least of some prime waterfront. Even the universally acclaimed Kingsbarns struggled to draw St. Andreans off their links, despite practically giving golf away by offering £15 green fees to residents, a whopping 90 percent discount off the regular £150 rate. What caught the Links Trust off guard was the unexpected opposition from camps they assumed would be in their corner, most notably the Scottish
T
Incoming Golf Tour Operators Association, the Kingdom of Fife Tourist Board, and the St. Andrews Hotel and Guest House Association. A seventh course certainly seemed in their collective best interests given that the parties were in the business of attracting and housing predominantly golf tourists. However, they wondered whether the new attraction might just deepen the advantage already enjoyed by The Old Course Experience, which operated unrivaled in guaranteed access to the Old Course and placed guests in the fancy hotels. Notwithstanding the fact that the Links Trust was providing residents with a world-class course and the promise to not jack the annual ticket fee excessively, locals remained skeptical. Rumors were rife that the Links Trust aimed to drive residents, as well as the local tournaments, up to No. 7 so as to free up the Old for rich tourists paying big-ticket green fees. The barb they felt the deepest questioned whether the Links Trust manipulated their facts and massaged their figures (by basing their claims on growth relative to 1995, an Open year, when the Old Course was closed for an additional four weeks for tournament preparations) as a means of justifying their empire building. The exact percentage of growth was irrelevant. No matter how you sliced it, there was simply not enough golf to go around. Resolved that they could not please all of the people at any time, the Working Party pressed on. •
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