A Sandy Lyle “signature” golf course will anchor a Scottish resort that aims to become “the perfect platform for endless year-round fun and entertainment for all the family.”
Lyle’s 7,300-yard course will be part of the Kersewell Resort, which is to take shape on 485 acres in Carnwath, a village located roughly 30 miles southwest of Edinburgh and an equal distance southeast of Glasgow. Derek Young, the resort’s developer, hopes to break ground on it in the spring. Assuming he stays on schedule, the course will open in 2014.
“This site is a great canvas to create a course that has the potential to rival, if not better, the finest inland courses in Scotland,” Lyle said in a press statement.
Lyle, a British Open and Masters champion and a member of five Ryder Cup teams, will co-design the track with Scott Macpherson, an architect with offices in Scotland and Queenstown, New Zealand.
Macpherson is perhaps best known as the design partner of former touring pro Greg Turner. The duo has designed a nine-hole layout for the Millbrook resort in Queenstown, New Zealand and collaborated on a redesign of Oreti Sands Golf Links in Invercargill, New Zealand. On his own, Macpherson has designed the recently opened Colt Course at Close House in Newcastle, England, and he’s helped to design two courses in St. Andrews, Scotland.
At build-out, Kersewell is expected to include nearly 800 “resort suites,” a hotel, a spa, restaurants, and an assortment of recreational amenities, including fishing ponds, a “kids’ zone,” and a sports center.
Young, who unveiled a more elaborate development plan for his property in 2007, believes the resort’s location is “perfect to exploit the fast-expanding and highly profitable short-break market.” He’s already secured preliminary approvals from local authorities, and late last year he told a local newspaper that he was “in the process of getting detailed planning consent.”
What Young doesn’t yet have is a complete funding package. A solicitation at the resort’s website offers “guaranteed immediate returns of up to 10 percent” and claims that “a two-decade investment could easily see a 559 percent return on the capital that is invested today.” Of course, you know what they say about offers that seem too good to be true.
Kersewell’s course will reportedly be built by Edinburgh Landscaping. The company’s principals, David and Eric Sammels, are currently working on improvements to the PGA Centenary Course at Gleneagles, the site of the 2014 Ryder Cup.
This story originally appeared in the World Edition of the Golf Course Report, in a slightly different form. For a sample copy of the World Edition, call 301/680-9460 or write to WorldEdition@aol.com.