The Golf Wars

As you’d expect for a country that bills itself the ‘Home of Golf’, the sport is big business for Scotland’s hotels. So much so that in 2005 an industry-led body was set up to support and promote its interests. Golf Tourism Scotland aims to establish Scotland as “the world’s number one golf tourism destination.”

With the British Open due to be held at Turnberry in 2009, then St Andrews in 2010, before the Ryder Cup returns to Scotland in 2014, the industry can expect an increased number of visitors interested in the sport, and the attention of the world’s sport media focused on its activities, for the next few years.

Golf Tourism Scotland bemoans a lack of co-ordinated effort to promote golf as a tourist attraction, but – co-ordinated or not – there are certainly signs that the owners of the country’s various golf resorts are raising their game in anticipation of these events. Of course the Open venues themselves – Turnberry (which is run as a Westin resort by Starwood) and The Old Course at St Andrew (the original ‘home of golf’ bought by American bathroom manufacturer Kohler in 2004) – will benefit from hosting the tournaments.

After the dust settled following the 2005 G8 summit, Gleneagles’s owners Diageo commenced an £18m rolling investment programme due for completion by 2014, when the hotel will host the Ryder Cup. Recently, the hotel has seen the introduction of ten new suites and an ESPA spa, designed by Amanda Rosa Interiors. Other enhancements, including a new kids’ club and the family-orientated Deseo restuarant, have been effected with the aim of shedding the hotel’s previously stuffy image.

But other golf resorts across Scotland can expect a boost too, whether they are directly involved as qualifying venues for the various tournaments, or simply taking advantage of the increased numbers of tourists, many of them keen golfers, that these events will bring.
Over at Loch Lomond, De Vere’s Cameron House has had a complete overhaul, including the addition of a new bedroom wing and spa, as well as new bars, restaurants and leisure facilities, following the opening of The Carrick 18 hole course last year.

And the Fairmont St Andrews, rebadged from the St Andrews Bay hotel in 2006, has recently completed an £13.5m revamp, with interiors by RPW Design.  When Sleeper visited in July this year, the bulldozers were busy remodelling the resort’s Torrance course in anticipation of the 2010 Open qualifying rounds it will host.

It’s not all about golf. All the hotels mentioned offer an array of other leisure activities, from weddings to watersports, flyfishing to falconry, spa treatments to shooting. The aforementioned refurbishments have been done with the intention of broadening the resorts’ appeal in areas outside of golf, as well as enhancing their greens and fairways.

And no wonder. The competition is due to intensify in the coming years. All eyes are on Turnberry following Dubai investment fund Leisurecorp’s £55m acquisition of the resort earlier this year. The resort’s new owners are planning a £20-30m refurbishment in advance of the Open. No doubt Leisurecorp, which has also acquired South Africa’s Pearl Valley golf resort, is hoping to learn some golfing lessons of its own that can be used back in Dubai to develop the Emirate’s own aspirations in the golfing sector.

Another Dubai-based group – the Al Tajir family’s Ochil Developments – is hoping to open a 180-room five-star golfing hotel, course and resort next door to Gleneagles.

But even the billionaire sheikhs of the United Arab Emirates have competition of their own in Scotland’s golf resort market. The biggest story of all in recent years, overshadowing even the imminent arrival of the Open and the Ryder Cup, has been the saga of Donald Trump’s fiercely opposed plan to create a £1bn golf resort of his own, on conservation protected land on the Menie Estate in Aberdeenshire. His plans were rejected by the local council in November 2007, but Scottish ministers are due to make a final decision on a revised application by the end of the year.

Fairmont, St Andrews

Gleneagles, Auchterarde

Cameron house, Loch Lomond