Confidence high as Castle Stuart gets set to rock and roll

MOVING the Barclays Scottish Open to the Highlands from its popular home at Loch Lomond may have caused the odd eyebrow to be raised but the man who had the vision to create Castle Stuart and sink his own money into the project is confident the pulling power of some of the world's top golfers will have the same effect in the Inverness area as some famous pop stars in recent years.

"To some people the Highlands is out of the way but I like to look at it as being ready to enjoy the small market phenomenon similar to something like the Green Bay Packers football team enjoy in the US," says Mark Parsinen, co-designer and managing partner of the 3 million event's new home. "Also, when anything exciting happens in the Highlands, the tickets go in a heartbeat, as was the case when both Elton John and Rod Stewart had concerts here. The Walker Cup at Nairn was also a success at the gate."

The Barclays Scottish Open was certainly a success at Loch Lomond, attracting in the region of 80,000 spectators most of the 15 years it was staged there, though initially under different guises. However, Parsinen and his team at Castle Stuart hope people will see the event moving to pastures new exactly as they did when Loch Lomond opened its doors for the first time, namely an exciting opportunity to watch the likes of major winners Phil Mickelson, Graeme McDowell and Padraig Harrington compete on one of the country's newest championship courses.

"It's not as much off the beaten path as some people seem to perceive and, from the Central Belt, spectators will be able to get the train up to Inverness and then jump on a fleet of buses that will be running to and from the course free of charge. A music festival is also going to be held in Inverness during the week of the event so people can come to enjoy some real Highlands hospitality," he adds.

Parsinen himself has been enjoying that since he first played golf in the area 40 years ago and now he is hoping the two-week celebration of links golf this summer - the Barclays Scottish Open on 7-10 July precedes the Open Championship at Royal St George's - will shut up some of his American friends once and for all. "I'm sick hearing them harping on about Chambers Bay and Bandon Dunes, saying that British courses are outdated and behind the times.

The Barclays Scottish Open at Castle Stuart followed by The Open at Royal St George's will be a combination of the best of 'what's new' coupled with the 'grand heritage' of the links game in Britain."

Parsinen, now living in California but raised in Minnesota, had already made his mark on the home of golf with the creation of Kingsbarns Links along with Kyle Phillips. He could, if he'd wanted to, have tried to get in before Donald Trump at Menie estate, north of Aberdeen. That, however, wasn't what he was looking for.

"Donald Trump's site is magnificent but there the holes are being built in the 'slacks' behind the barrier dunes. That is nice but I was looking for topography similar to the ninth and tenth at Turnberry and also the seventh, eighth and ninth at Royal Dornoch where you are either on top of the escarpment or below it. I wanted people to have something interesting to see in the distance," says Parsinen.

The man who first came to these shores to study at the London School of Economics and, during a spell cutting his teeth in the marketing business, played a part in the creation of Coors Light - "a no-brainer today but ground-breaking stuff at the time" - remembers as though it was yesterday the occasion he knew he had found exactly what he was looking for at Castle Stuart, which sits a few miles to the east of Inverness close to the Highland capital's airport and also Fort George, home of The Black Watch.

"It was in 2003 and I will never forget walking to the spot where the bunkers are now on the left side of the ninth. I thought, 'wow this is it'. It was the topography of the site that I liked. The escarpment below, which is adjacent to the sea, was full of gorse then and, with the Kessock Bridge in one direction and Chanonry Lighthouse the other, I knew I had found what I was looking for. It probably took me only 30 minutes to realise that and it was then a case of trying to find out who exactly owned the land and putting a team together to build the course."

The co-designer on this team was Gil Hanse, another fellow American, though the Kingsbarns connection was maintained when Stuart McColm, the construction superintendent and subsequent course manager at the Fife course, moved north to the Highlands to team up with Parsinen again. In some respects, Castle Stuart is similar to Kingsbarns but, according to managing partner Parsinen, the overall feel and effect is "a little different".

The greens are certainly a lot smaller. At Kingsbarns, they average 11,000 square feet, whereas at Castle Stuart it is 6,000 square feet. The bunkering is different, too. The Highlands venue embraces the rugged look mixed with areas of revetting that existed around the turn of the century, as opposed to the sharper-looking revetted style of all the bunkers at Kingsbarns. The fairways are also very generous, some stretching to more than 75 yards wide.But, says Parsinen, anyone who thinks that will make the course too easy for an event like the Barclays Scottish Open is barking up the wrong tree.

"To some people we have a radical design and, due to the width of the fairways, I've heard it said that the course is not tough enough for professionals. I believe that's a misconception because it's one thing hitting the fairway, but put your ball in the wrong spot and you are going to have a difficult shot into the green. Indeed, being in that position might lead to a more catastrophic score than if a player had been in heavy rough and had to hack out from there," he observes.

"We had a pro-am last year and, playing off the white tees, the best score was level par over two days. The back tees have hardly been used, though Stephen Gallacher did play off them when he was here last year. We also have positions behind them that we can use."

Not that 61-year-old Parsinen, in tandem with tournament director Mike Stewart, will be trying to set it up in a way that, in some respects, would defeat one of the main reasons that the Scottish Open is returning to a links for the first time since 1996, when Ian Woosnam lifted the title at Carnoustie.

"The Open is the greatest tournament in the world," he said, "and we want to give players the best preparation for the big event. We don't want to wear them out, or for the test at Castle Stuart to be tedious. We don't want to beat players up - we want it to be an engaging pleasure. We don't care if -15 or -18 is the winning score. We want players to feel they can compete aggressively. I think pros are getting tired of playing courses that are set up to be so difficult they have to play defensive golf all the time. There's room to play here."

Unlike Trump, he has gone about his business quietly since Castle Stuart opened its doors to the public in summer of 2009 and, after months of speculation, it is now all systems go after a multi-year deal was struck to stage an event that already has two of the current major champions, Mickelson and McDowell, as well as three-time major winner Harrington committed to playing.

And, if Tiger Woods can also be persuaded to be there, that pop star analogy will possibly ring true.