While I realize it is natural to romanticize faraway places and sentimentalize days gone by, the direction this thread had taken is remarkable.
Can anyone offer one shred of evidence that the opening of Kingsbarns has, in any way, damaged the golf economy or the "local clubs" in Fife? Have the golf clubs on the Ayrshire coast been damaged in anyway by their proximity to Turnberry? If you asked the Club Secretary at Western Gailes whether or not his club sees more visitor revenue because it is relatively close to Turnberry, what do you think he would say?
The vast majority of locals in the Highlands are thrilled the Scottish Open is being held at Castle Stuart. Tickets sales are ahead of when it was held in past years in Loch Lomond. The hospitality pavilions are sold out.
Local golf clubs, who operate on a very thin margin and are dependent upon visitor fees to break even, are already seeing an uptick in revenue from the new golfing visitors that Castle Stuart is bringing to the Highlands. In May, I spoke with a local restauranteur who said he is having his best spring ever and is sure CS has brought him new business.
I found all this fussing over local and visiting golfers curious. Hasn't golf tourism been part of the Scottish economy for 100 years? Didn't Joyce Wethered and her family summer in Scotland in the 1920's? What else keeps golf affordable for the average Scot but the revenue from visitor green fees and overseas memberships?.
Unlike my good friend Mike Whitaker, I do not believe golf tourism is a zero sum game. New golfers (and traveling golfers) are born every year. Millions of people around the world will see the Scottish Open on TV this week. There is no doubt in my mind that some of them, who likely know little about golf in the Highlands, will say to themselves, "that looks fantastic, I want to visit there soon." When they get there, they won't just play CS, they will also play some rounds at courses such as Nairn, Moray, Brora, Dornoch, Golspie, etc. They will not come just from the U.S. They will come from Holland, Germany, Finland, France, Japan, Korea, etc.
I could not disagree more with RJ Daley's statement ("50pounds a loop for a few caddies isn't worth the overall decline of the local culture and traditions, along with the altered balance of the local economy to survive and evolve on the will of its own native people's decisions, not American corporate CCFAD models, IMHO, of course."). The construction of CS created 20 or more good paying jobs for 12-24 months. There are another 20-25 jobs on the grounds crew. There are jobs in the clubhouse. How many jobs will there be for the locals once the full resort is complete? 50? 100? More?
To describe Mark Parsinen's efforts at CS as creating some sort of "American corporate CCFAD model" is a rather grotesque mischaracterization of what he has set out to accomplish there. Mr. Parsinen and his colleagues have chosen to invest millions of pounds Scotland and golf there will be all the better for it.