Nice to hear some positive feedback about the course and you seemed to enjoy it Niall, if you are ever passing again or anyone is I'll happily host. As a member I have a couple of small points to clarify. James the greenkeeper may have been the only one at the time of your visit as the second greenkeeper left in march/april and we have had 2 full time for many years with summer helpers too. We tried to recruit a replacement but ended up taking on a lad as an apprentice.
Saying his father helps comes over as a bit quaint and sells Ron a little short. He has lived and breathed golf all of his life, been a regular greens convener at the club with many an hour working there before James was born never mind since he returned from Castle Stuart. His day job was as a college lecturer on agricultural studies and since his retirement was in demand for many lectures throughout the UK and Scandinavia. He is now been coaxed into lecturing on Greenkeeping and Golf Management at the Dornoch campus as part of the Highlands University.
All that said there are issues with what is getting done or rather not and the greens have gone backwards the last 2 years.
Someone also mentioned somewhere that they were disappointed the course was built on farmland not the links and I can understand why the would say that if they never played here more than 20 years ago. All of the scrub/bents areas where there was also bare sand has become totally overgrown and was completely different when the course was built looking at old B+W photos.
Here are 2 examples of how it was in the early 19 hundreds and the same views today. It is possible to make out some the features quite easily today on the ground but I'm afraid photos don't pick out them the same.
The first is looking from behind the 1
st green down the old second (the layout was changed in 2001)
Today, now totaly overgrown
The second is looking at the same area of ground but looking almost in the opposite direction.again overgrown and fairway/practice ground