£1m transformation brings drama back to Gleneagles golf course

IT WAS more of a day for Noah launching his ark than showcasing a Ryder Cup golf course, yet it was testimony to the work, carried out over the winter at a cost of £1 million, that the transformation of the PGA Centenary Course at Gleneagles still shone through as it prepares to host the 2014 match.

A makeover has changed the much-maligned 18th, a hole that was bland and boring, to something that is a huge improvement, while the ninth, another par-5, has been made spectacular thanks to a decision to replace an enormous bunker by extending an irrigation pond closer to the fairway.

Add in the work that has been done to make all but one of the 80-odd bunkers on the course visible from the tee or the fairway, as well as changes to some of the greens, notably the short sixth, and it is making the Jack Nicklaus-designed layout, which has often been criticised for having an American feel to it, sit more naturally now in the Perthshire countryside.

“There were lots of Americanisms about the Monarch’s, the big bunkers and that sort of thing,” said Scott Fenwick, the Gleneagles golf courses and estate manager, referring to its original name 19 years ago, when asked to sum up the latest raft of changes, which have come on the back of an overall investment of £25million at the resort in preparation for it hosting the third biggest event on the sporting calendar.

“But now it’s more in keeping with Gleneagles and Scotland, I think. Gradually we’ve taken the American-style out and it looks more natural, like it should be in this landscape. It’s dramatically different.”

It certainly is yet, much as though the aforementioned changes should be applauded and will surely receive warm approval when they get their first proper test run at the Johnnie Walker Championship in August, it is an investment in the greens that is likely to prove the money best spent by the Gleneagles hierarchy.

They’ve been a cause for concern ever since Darren Clarke, amongst others, criticised them a few years ago. But the current Open champion would almost certainly have offered a more positive assessment if he’d been there to see them and also putt on them yesterday.

As both the neighbouring King’s and Queen’s Courses were being closed just before lunchtime due to the greens flooding on them, the putting surfaces on the PGA Centenary Course were still perfectly playable thanks to a hi-tech sub-air system that has been installed in all of them as well as the practice putting green.

The first system of its kind to be utilised on a course in the United Kingdom, it is powered by four-and-a-half miles of cable and can be operated from a laptop or mobile phone, yet the only evidence of it being there are small green control boxes at the back of the greens.

The decision to install the system throughout the course, at an estimated cost of £500,000, followed a successful trial at the tenth hole, where the green at the par-3 used to be one of the worst affected during wet spells.

“The tenth was the weakest green on the golf course and now it’s one of the best,” said Fenwick of a trial that was triggered by the 2006 match at The K Club being hit by extremely wet conditions, as was the case at Celtic Manor two years ago.

“After that trial, it was an easy choice to install it everywhere else,” he added. “The greens are nice and firm at the moment and the sub-air is helping us improve them all the time.”

Nicklaus has been heavily involved in the hole changes, his chief designer, Dirk Bouts, reporting back to the 18-time major winner after each of the six or so visits he’s made to the Perthshire resort over the past year. Nicklaus also sent over one of his top shapers from Florida to put the finishing touches to the 18th.

It has been raised at the tee and lowered dramatically at an amphitheatre green, which sits to the right of where it was and is also straight up and down rather than at a 90 degree angle. “It is quite a small target and more challenging,” observed Fenwick of a hole that will now play at 513 yards off the back pegs, putting it right on the limit in two blows at the Ryder Cup.

Such is modern-day society that someone will still find something to moan about, but one thing for sure is that no-one can accuse Gleneagles bosses of not digging deep to try to deliver a course that will do Scotland proud when it stages the Europe versus America clash for the first time since 1973.