Coronavirus: Carnoustie draws up 'disaster recovery plan'

Carnoustie Championship Course is one of the most popular venues with visiting golfers from around the world

The plan at the Open Championship venue includes visiting golfers missing out on tee times booked until the end of June due to travel restrictions in place around the world being able to reschedule through until the 2023 season.

"The impact has been - and continues to be - significant and we have had to make some extraordinary strategic and operational decisions to help our customers, aid public health protection, safeguard staff and support the Government’s advice to limit social contact where possible," said Carnoustie Golf Links chief executive Michael Wells.

"The main point of concern has been with our visiting golfers who have booked to play golf at Carnoustie this season, the majority of which are from overseas, North America in particular.

"We realised early on that a combined collective response from across the Scottish golf industry was required, and pro-actively went out to seek the opinions and thoughts of other golf venues regarding this, that both protects business sustainability and looks after the interests of our customers.

"Our view has very much been that we need to do everything we can to reward the loyalty that international golf tourism visitors have shown to Carnoustie and Scotland."

While Links House, which was opened in the build up to the 2018 Open, is remaining open, the highly-acclaimed Rookery bar and restaurant is closing as from today.

Out on the Carnoustie courses, all bunker rakes have been removed, with bunkers being classed as GUR (ground under repair) for the time being.

Tee boxes and bins have also been brought in, while golfers have been asked to follow advice about social distancing and avoiding contact with the pin as much as possible.

"This will have very serious potential ramifications across the board and Carnoustie is no exception," added Wells. "We have put in place a disaster recovery plan that has positioned our organisation in the strongest possible place to tackle what might lay ahead and to look after our people.

"This week, it has been necessary to make decisions to safeguard the sustainability of our organisation as we face the unfolding challenges that the coronavirus outbreak has presented.

"We have adopted two cohort teams who will never be physically in the business at the same time, but will mutually make sure everything is covered, from payroll to reservations to greens maintenance.

"The teams are multi-skilled and will adopt a skeleton ‘all hands on deck’ approach to keep our courses and communications open.

"We have adopted Microsoft teams as an agile remote working tool, alongside plenty of WhatsApp groups! With our main income stream in question, we have adopted a disaster recovery mode for our business, shrinking it down to the leanest possible state to make sure we get to the other side above water.

"These decisions have put our organisation in the best possible position to endure what may be thrown at it and to ultimately protect our staff. As I write this email, I know of friends and family in the hospitality and leisure industry who are facing uncertainty from their places of work, ranging from pay cuts to lay-offs.

"We have been able to avoid such measures, but only because our dedicated staff made some hard decisions over the last couple of years, which has ultimately created a much more resilient organisation.

"While it will be a test, we can be much more optimistic about our ability to weather the storm."