Tom
The building which has the shop on the ground floor became Old Tom’s home in the early 1900 leaving the main house with its entrance on Pilmour Links to the Hunter children. The garden of the main house connects to the side and back of the building the shop occupies. Looking at the front of the shop, the left hand door runs under the first floor to the entrance of the flat above the shop then continues to the back garden of the main house.
Remember you are talking about Scotland where many properties have the stairs to the first floor outside. So yes the two areas are not interconnected so can function as shop and flat above.
The shop was owned by my father’s cousin who was not that interested in the shop. She made arrangement which culminating in the manager taking over the shop, then his two sons. I believe it was these two sons who sold out to the Trust. Quite frankly they did not know what they had, or how to make the best, lacking serious marketing abilities. My last visit to the shop horrified me as there was no service, the shop was well out of date and the management did not have a clue. Using the family name, the shop Old Tom owned, I am very pleased that these two have departed and the Trust are in charge of the rented (I believe) shop.
AS for the 7th Course, while not in possion of all the facts, I believe that a 7th course in not required and to be honest the 4th, 5th & 6th Courses need to be modified to present the face of St Andrews the Home of Golf. MY reasoning being if St Andrews is going to sell itself as the Home of Golf, then they need to present to the public at large courses that relate to this area. Not a mixed assortment of any type of course in the hope that golfer will buy the whole package. The Trust have a duty of care to the courses and the people of St Andrews, to present them with a standard in keeping with what they are selling and represent, not anything that’s fake or built upon land totally unfit for purpose. IMHO time and money needs to be spent on the other courses to bring them into line with the Old, New and Jubilee. To keep putting in standard run of the mill courses will not do, they detract from the reason the Trust is in place and quite frankly is unfair to the golfing world who come to experience our courses. I do not want to see an English or American standard course or any international mix, I want to see more traditional courses that’s why many come to St. Andrews. Otherwise why spend all that money just to play TOC, golfers want variety but Scottish variety not another fake mess available anywhere else in this world.
Golfers put their faith and trust in the Trust to honour their commitments, yet we are presented with what I would call 3.5 good courses in St Andrews. So we need the Trust to keep faith with the golfers who spend a fortune coming to play golf at St Andrews, so should be presented with good courses that are at one and at home with their surroundings. There is more to building a golf course than a good design and lots of money, we should have understood that years ago. My opinion is that the Castle course betrays all that TOC represents and questions the integrity of people that think that giving the golfing public a course like The Castle is acceptable – I say it’s not, certainly not at St Andrews the Home of Golf, just what is there to be proud of in this helter skelta course.
Melvyn