Askernish Old:

the worlds
number one
golf course
focas focus
13
West Highland Free Press | Friday 2 September 2011
BRIAN WILSON looks
forward with
optimism, on the
third anniversary of
the Askernish revival
BRIAN WILSON
focus
Club captain Donald MacInnes
L
AST WEEKEND BROUGHT more than 100
golfers to South Uist for the Askernish Open and
associated competitions. The sun shone and the
views across to Barra were at their finest.
It was hardly a big number by golf standards but the
portents are interesting. The private planes were flying in.
And golfers came from all over the UK, Canada, Finland,
Belgium, Ireland Word is getting around. There are
discussions about hosting the World Hickory Championship
in 2013 which would attracted several hundred golfers.
To put it another way, the optimistic predictions are
starting to come true. Throughout the summer, an
international array of visitors have been finding their way to
Askernish, intrigued by the story of the lost Old Tom
Morris course that has now been rescued from oblivion.
The course has undergone significant improvements since
Kenny Dalglish struck the first official ball on 27th August
2008, to inaugurate the revived 18-hole course. By the
standards of international golf, the sums invested have been
paltry but have made crucial differences to the quality of the
experience.
Most of the work has been underwritten by quietly-given
donations, in both money and kind, from some of the best-
known business figures in the golf industry. Michael Keiser,
who owns a string of courses including Bandon Dunes in
Oregon, sent $50,000.
Tom Doak, based in Kansas and probably the worlds most
highly-regarded golf architect, visited South Uist then
dispatched one of his top men to oversee improvements in
consultation with the local committee. Another benefactor
was Gordon Stollery from Toronto, an oil man and links golf
enthusiast.
Over 150,000 has been spent on improving the course
while maintaining its essential claim to be the last surviving
outpost of natural golf as played in the late 19th century.
For example, the greens have been hugely improved using
top dressing and seaweed from the shore. But the committee
has resisted any change in their natural undulations.
Donald MacInnes, the club captain, says the remarkable
thing is that Askernish has acted as a catalyst. So many
people have passed through here over the past few years who
are well-known in the golf industry without knowing one
another.
T
HIS YEAR will see around a thousand visitors playing
Askernish, but the big upsurge could come very soon.
This is largely due to the extraordinary prominence
given to the course and the story behind it by the venerable
US magazine Sports Illustrated, which boasts a readership
of 23 million.
Sports Illustrated is running a series of seven lengthy,
heavily-illustrated articles which follow the history of
Askernish. Two have already appeared, written by Sports
Illustrateds recently-retired chief golf writer John Garrity,
who has emerged as Askernishs publicist-in-chief.
John is living proof that the modern Askernish story goes
back further than is sometimes suggested. In 1990, another
distinguished golf journalist and author, Robin McMillan
then editor of Golf magazine mentioned the story he had
heard in his native Scotland about a lost Tom Morris
course in South Uist.
John Garrity recalls: I was the lucky inheritor of that
story. He was due to head to St Andrews, and made the
major detour to South Uist. We came through Skye and
across the ferry to Lochmaddy and stayed at the
Lochboisdale Hotel. Wherever we went, I asked about the
Old Tom Morris golf course but nobody knew what I was
talking about.
That is confirmed by Donald MacInnes one of the
stalwarts who had kept Askernsh going who met John
Garrity at that time. It was the first we knew of it, says
Donald. Old Tom Morris could have been anyone. While
there was a vague community awareness of the courses
history, the identity of its designer had not made an
impression.
John Garrity and his wife sought out the nine-hole course
which then existed. This was in May. I didnt see a golf
course anywhere just a beautiful meadow covered with
flowers. Then a little pick-up came through the gate with two
guys, flag-sticks and a mower. I guess we were the first to
turn up that year.
Eventually, John did what Old Tom Morris must have
done more than a hundred years earlier: he advanced to the
top of the dunes. The revelation was to look south. It
immediately reminded me of Ballybunion, one of the great
Irish links courses. John knew exactly what he had found
and started laying out holes in his mind.
Back in the US, John wrote a 7,000-word article for Sports
Illustrated about the lost Old Tom Morris course which he
had rediscovered. But not a lot of notice was taken at that
time. More than a decade later, he initiated his own blog
which featured his top 50 courses in the world.
It was a bit of a tongue-in-cheek send-up of these lists
and the rivalries they attract, he says. So I included
Askernish Old as my number one course. Remember that, at
this time, Askernish Old only existed in my own mind and I
was just about the only person who had played it. But there
is so much snobbery in golf that it took years for anyone to
admit that they didnt know where Askernish Old was!
U
NKNOWN TO John Garrity, his footsteps had
eventually been followed in by a leading UK master
greenkeeper, Gordon Irvine his curiosity whetted
by a chance conversation with Tim Atkinson, who had been
the factor for South Uist Estates before moving to Ayrshire.
They met when Gordon Irvine went to buy a fishing
permit. Their conversation moved from brown trout to South
Uist, to golf to Old Tom Morris. And the rest really is
history. Gordon made the same journey, climbed the same
dunes, saw the same incredible vista, which might have been
created for the purpose of golf. And this time, things
happened.
Donald MacInnes recalls Ralph Thompson, the club
chairman, joining him for a pint with the announcement:
Ive just had some guy on the phone wanting to turn
Askernish into an 18-hole course. They had a good laugh
since, for years, the club had been struggling to survive with
its nine not-very-exciting holes and a tiny membership.
The man who really encouraged youngsters of my
generation to take up golf was Dr Robertson and you used to
see his wife out mowing the fairways. I absolutely loved it. It
could have gone from strength to strength here but when he
retired to Edinburgh, it started to fall away. There is a gap of
15 years and that affects the membership of the club.
At one point in the 1990s, a meeting was called to
consider winding the club up altogether but that was
rejected. However, it was not until the Gordon Irvine phone
call in 2005 that there was any hint of what was to follow or
that Askernish would become the mecca for seekers after the
long-lost world of natural golf.
A
S INTEREST in Askernish grew, Ralph Thompson
noticed the curious fact that John Garrity then
unknown to him listed Askernish Old as his
worlds number one course. Wrongly assuming that this was
based on the Sports Illustrated mans knowledge of the
renovation, Ralph phoned him to say thanks.
John Garrity takes up the story: All these years had
passed and I had never heard anything more about it. Then
in 2007, somebody named Ralph Thompson phoned to ask
how did you hear about us?. The answer was that I hadnt
until that moment but I wanted to get there fast, which I did.
He has been proselytising ever since. John says: I think
there is a kind of golfer who really appreciates the great links
courses. Askernish is not only one of the best golf places in
the world but it has this fantastic back-up story. There is a
certain kind of golfer who will travel anywhere for that kind
of almost mystical experience.
A
ND THAT IS the prospect that South Uist now has to
address. The Yanks are certainly coming along with
many others. That is a prospect which creates its own
challenges, as Donald MacInnes acknowledges.
We have to break even within four years, he says. We
cant go on relying on donations and goodwill to do the work
that is necessary.
The timely transfer of South Uist Estates to community
ownership has been crucial in the Askernish story so far and
will continue to be so. Angus MacMillan, chairman of Storas
Uibhist, says that they are well placed to meet the
infrastructure needs that lie ahead. Storas already owns land
and buildings which could provide the necessary facilities as
Askernish develops further. He also thinks this new
international traffic creates a great opportunity for the local
hotels to step up to the mark.
Meanwhile, John Garrity continues to list Askernish Old
now a reality as opposed to a figment of his imagination
as the worlds number one golf course, with Augusta at
number four and Pebble Beach down at number seven. And
one day soon, he might even be able to take the tongue out of
his cheek!
From the 10th tee
looking over towards
Barra not many better
views from a golf course
anywhere in the world
Askernish Old:
the worlds
number one
golf course