Golfers heading for the Home of Golf can look forward to a greater choice of courses in years to come as St Andrews Links Trust yesterday received permission from the planning authorities to create a new golf course on the edge of the town.
The new 18 hole course will be joining the Trust’s portfolio of six courses, which includes the Old Course, venue for the Open Championship in 2005. It will be a public course, open all year round and affordable. Work will start on site this summer and while progress is dependent on weather conditions, it is hoped the course will be open for play in 2006.
Following the coastline east of St Andrews, the seventh course will be exposed to sea breezes. The designer, David McLay Kidd, creator of Bandon Dunes on the west coast of America, intends to create a typical Scottish golf experience. It will be playable between 5000-7000 yards.
“This is good news for the tens of thousands of golfers making their pilgrimages to St Andrews,” said Alan McGregor, general manager of the Links Trust. “Our courses are just about at capacity which is putting both golfers‘ access to the courses and their enjoyment at risk. The seventh course will ease this unrelenting pressure and ensure that the quality of the golfing experience is maintained.”
Around 210,000 rounds are played on the six courses on the Links every year with the last peak being 215,000 in 2001, the year after the Open Championship. The new course is being created in response to rising demand and will ease congestion on the existing courses by offering golfers an alternative high quality course to play, with spectacular views of the town.
St Andrews Links Trust www.standrews.org.uk
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