Project to reshape three greens at Dundonald Links reaches completion
Work to reshape three of the greens at the Dundonald Links golf course near Troon, Scotland, has been completed.
A links course on Scotland’s west course, Dundonald Links was originally designed by architect Kyle Phillips.
The club was purchased by Loch Lomond Golf Club in 2003. The board has recently committed £2.1 million to develop a new clubhouse at Dundonald Links, with work set to get underway in the coming weeks.
“The investment in the new clubhouse is a pretty strong statement from the board in terms of Dundonald and its future,” said Ian Ferguson, club manager, Dundonald Links, speaking to GCA. “With regards to the course itself, we at the club stay in regular touch with Kyle Phillips, and he came over to meet with us a few weeks ago and spent the day assessing the course.”
Ferguson says that Phillips looked at three greens in particular, and felt that increasing their respective sizes to enable more pin placements would be beneficial to the course as a whole. He also decided to rework some of the green’s undulations.
Phillips drew up plans for the three greens – namely those on holes five, fifteen and sixteen – before shaper David Smith came on site to get the work underway.
“David Smith was on site for two to three weeks, and lifted all three greens before reshaping them and relaying the turf,” said Ferguson. “The last green has now been completed, and the hope is to have the greens open once again, weather-permitting, by mid-May.”
With the current work and the investment in the clubhouse infrastructure at Dundonald Links, could the club potentially play host to an event such as the Scottish Open somewhere down the line?
“We plan to keep evolving the course and involving Kyle with that, because we don’t want to lose the integrity of his work,” said Ferguson. “The three greens were a significant part of our plan to do that, and whenever we’re able to release capital and funds to carry work out, we try to do so.”
“We do have one eye on the Scottish Open,” he added. “The driver for the changes is to help evolve our course here at Dundonald. But a secondary consequence might be that our course might be more suitable for a European Tour event, with more pin placements and the like. But it definitely benefits us to have the changes anyway and keep Kyle involved, and keep the integrity of the whole thing as a Kyle Phillips course.”
Ferguson concluded: “Who knows, we’ll see what happens! It’d be great to have a big event like that but if it doesn’t happen we’ll get on, make sure we have a great course, and keep evolving it.”