Old Course ballot switch is branded 'meaningless'

THE decision to change the Old Course ballot to 48 hours in advance has been warmly welcomed in St Andrews but an American who has written a book on golf tourism in Scotland has described it as "meaningless".

The St Andrews Links Trust took the decision to end the 24-hour ballot as from next January after an extensive consultation exercise with a whole host of organisations and bodies in the Fife town.

The change is being made to give those golfers who miss out in the ballot more time to fix up an alternative venue as well as keeping visitors in St Andrews for longer. It is being welcomed by Mark Richardson, secretary of the New Golf Club in St Andrews. "I think it will help people to be a bit more organised, especially when it comes to the weekend for our members," he said.

Jamie Gardner, who runs Adventures in Golf, a tourism company based in St Andrews, added: "The main benefit of this is that will allow people to plan their stay more efficiently.

"The reason it's not been done before now is probably that there was an element of opinion that why should something be changed that has always been a certain way.

"But congratulations to the Links Trust for being open-minded enough to take on the views that were offered during the consultation process."

However, Allan Ferguson, who wrote 'Golf in Scotland', a travel planning guide for Americans, believes the change will make no difference to a system he has been critical of in the past. This change is about as meaningful as Mubarak announcing that he won't run for office again in September. When the whole system needs changing, one crumb thrown to the populace is an insult," he said.

"First, it's not difficult now to rearrange tee times after success in the daily ballot. Second, why keep visitors in St Andrews longer when other parts of the country are starving for golf tourists?

"Scotland's golf policy ought to encourage visitors to discover the country outside of St Andrews.

"The Links Trust should scrap the whole damned system, get rid of its cosy relationship with the Keith Prowse agency and start making advance reservations on a first-come, first-served basis just as all the other great courses in Scotland do.

"It wouldn't be that hard to do, if they had the guts and the good sense to cut all the special privileges and just do it. That would be a significant announcement. This one is meaningless."

While St Andrews may be trying to hang on to visitors for a day longer than they might have stayed in the past, officials at some of Scotland's other championship courses are confident they will still get their fair share of golfers from around the world.

"I don't see this change having a significant affect on our business," said Graeme Duncan, the general manager of Carnoustie Golf Links. "I don't think this will cause people to change their plans to not play Carnoustie."

Neil Hampton, his counterpart at Royal Dornoch, commented: "My gut feeling is that I don't think this will affect us because our visitors are probably going to be staying for a few days up here anyway and also playing at Castle Stuart and Nairn.

"However, it could impact on courses where people are coming to St Andrews and then making day trips elsewhere."