Coming Home
This year the Old Course is hosting the 2005 Open Championship in July for the
27th time and it will certainly keep St Andrews Links Trust staff focused.
LINKS SUPERINTENDENT GORDON MOIR EXPLAINS
N
OT only do we have the 2005 Open
Championship to prepare for but we are also involved in the construction and
management of course number 7, the single largest investment ever made by the St. Andrews Links Trust. It will be a 7,000 yard 18 hole golf course designed by David Mclay Kidd. This course will help us to keep up with the demand for golf here at St Andrews Links. The construction of the new course began in March 2005. The Links Trust has appointed Allan Patterson, former Head Greenkeeper on the Kings, Queens and Wee courses at Gleneagles, to oversee the construction, opening and long-term development of the cliff-top course, which is due to open in 2007. I started my career at St Andrews in 1991 as head greenkeeper of the Eden Course and became links superintendent in October 2000. I am responsible for overseeing all aspects of managing the turf on all the golf courses at St Andrews Links, which currently comprises five and half courses – 99 holes of golf. The courses and the facilities are public, open to all golfers. We have well over 200,000 rounds of golf played here each year, with more than 40,000 rounds being played on the Old Course alone. St Andrews Links were originally granted to the people of the town by King David in 1123. The land has remained in public ownership since that
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time except between 1799 – 1821 when it was owned by merchants who were using the land for rabbit farming. Today the 675-acre area is owned by Fife Council and managed by St Andrews Links Trust, a charitable organisation set up in 1974 by an Act of Parliament. The Trust has two committees which include representatives nominated by Fife Council and The Royal & Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews. This year the Trust agreed to a request
from the Royal and Ancient Golf Club to lengthen five holes by building new tees (2nd, 4th, 12th, 13th and 14th) for the 2005 Open. These new or extended tees will operate for the first time at the Championship and will not be used for normal play. These changes will alter the course length by an additional 164 yards, from 7115 yards to 7279 yards.
THE OLD COURSE
It is fondly known as the Home of Golf, as the sport was first played here some 600 years ago and over the years it has become one of the most famous golf courses in the world. The course is unique in that many of the greens are shared. These double greens are a special feature, one measures 100 yards long and takes two greenkeepers the best part of two hours to mow by hand. The course is made even more demanding by the fact that the golfers face 112 deep bunker hazards and ever changing winds.
Staff
Currently I have 48 full time staff plus six mechanics, six gardeners and one dedicated digger driver to manage all the courses. In April we take on another 20 seasonal staff to help out with day to day grass cutting operations. These extra staff stay until late September/October. Staging the Open on the Old Course
will result in closing all the other courses during the Championship. All my staff and machinery will be available for use, thus ensuring we have the best presented and conditioned course possible for the event.
Last October we started revetting and
repairing the bunkers on the Old Course. We have re-built and repaired 94 of the 112 bunkers, bringing them back into shape and condition. In March we closed the course for two weeks to complete some final remedial and top dressing works. All tees and greens are top dressed using compatible sand dressings. We tend to buy in our dressings from Levenseat Sands. We utilise some sand from our beaches for fairway dressings, bunkers and filling in divots. However, the process of collecting, cleaning and washing is long winded, so it is more cost effective and consistent to buy in materials for topdressing the greens, tees and approaches. We recycle a lot of material. We collect all the grass cuttings from around the course and compost them along with
Golf is
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