A multi-million pound golf development near St Andrews is “definitely not dead” and will be taken forward by a newly created business team.
The Feddinch Club’s head of membership attainment, Ollie Dury, said a new vision had been drawn up for the 18-hole golf course development on the former Feddinch farmland site near the town.
Mr Dury, 42, who lives in St Andrews and has 20 years’ experience in golf business and management, said a new management team had been pulled together over the past two months and efforts were now at the early stages to attract founder partners and members.
Whereas the previously named St Andrews International Golf Club (SAIGC) had envisaged a development whereby members paid to simply become members of the club which was owned by stakeholders, a fundamental change of direction, visualised by SAIGC director Ewan McKay, was that the development should now see members actually own part of the development including the land.
It would be run on a “not for profit” basis, Mr Dury said, and as well as golf would offer access to other high end pursuits such as shooting and fishing.
It was hoped that most of the members would be drawn on a “referrals” basis through business contacts and that a broad membership base could be secured from across Europe, the USA, China and the Far East.
Mr Dury said local people could soon expect to see the resumption of work on irrigation at the Feddinch course, which was designed by 1973 Open champion Tom Weiskopf.
An exact date could not be given, as this would be dependent on financial input and the weather aspects of seeding the course, but Mr Dury anticipated the development could open in “2017 at the earliest and 2018 at the latest”.
He said: “I’m very confident this will succeed, because St Andrews is a very unique place.
“As far as I’m aware it would be the only private club that has its own golf club in St Andrews, which is going to be appealing, and will have its own accommodation lodging etc which means members will have somewhere to stay which is home. It’s private, it’s secure. There’s a lot of people out there who are in a position to join a club who can’t get that sort of privacy anywhere else.
“We are not looking at thousands of members and we are looking for an international base.
“Start dividing that up by countries and it’s not a huge number per country. Hopefully the majority will be by referral.
“So I am confident. I’ve worked in the golf industry a long timelike everything else it comes down to the right vision, the right belief and you’ve got to have the right people around the project to make it a success.”