So much attention has been paid to Donald Trump’s grandiose plans for the so-called ‘world’s greatest golf course’ in Aberdeenshire, that the plans of another major golf investor have slipped through under the wire, almost unnoticed.
But while Trump’s plans have been largely all about talk, controversy, massive costs and some strong local antipathy, the multi-millionaire and former BBC Chairman Gavyn Davies has been doing the opposite.
This week Mr Davies (together with his wife Baroness Sue Nye, Gordon Brown’s former gatekeeper at Number Ten) bought the mothballed Machrie Hotel on Islay.
The Machrie went into receivership last December (see Cal Merc passim) after struggling for years. Everyone on this Hebridean isle knew that the new owner would have to have very deep pockets, a keen enthusiasm for golf and a love of this island and, crucially, an appreciation of the particular problems that can plague developers here.
For example, the hotel has never been connected to the proper mains water supply and no-one can give an exact date as to when that, expensive, move might happen.
But in Mr Davies and Baroness Nye, the people of Islay seem to have found what they were looking for. A former Goldman Sachs banker, Mr Davies is a golf devotee with a personal fortune of about £150 million accrued by shrewd investments in hedge funds.
Mr Davies was the Chairman of the BBC between 2001 and 2004. He resigned from the BBC following the Hutton report which was critical of the organisation.
Baroness Nye is a sharp operator who loves Islay. They know the island, they know the game of golf and they appear to have the determination to stay with this project for the long haul.
And while Donald Trump is talking about his golf course, Mr Davies’ people are talking privately about two championship courses on Islay, a spa and the sort-of top-quality facilities to attract thousands more tourists to an island which has suffered deeply from the recession.
The existing Machrie championship golf course, a traditional links course, continued to operate as normal even when the hotel went under last year but, with nowhere for visitors to stay, it suffered considerably too.
But it is a magnificent course. It has regularly been named as one of the top 100 in the world and the buyers believe the addition of a second course could turn the resort into one of most appealing golf resorts in the country.
There is evidence from around the world that second courses often cause a massive increase to the number of visitors to an area, sometimes bringing in as many as four times as many golfers as were attracted to just the one course.
A spa, a second course and the associated facilities will not be cheap and Machrie Golf LLP – as the business partnership which owns the Machrie is now called – may have to invest several million pounds in the finished product, and that is on top of the £1.3 million or so they paid for the hotel.
But, even at that price, they will have spent only a fraction of the sums being bandied about on Trump land in Menie and they will have a genuine golf resort to sell to the lucrative worldwide golf market.
The amount that Machrie Golf LLP invests over the next few years will depend on the results of a feasibility study, which will be finished by the end of this month.
The buyers have not set out an exact timetable for the development but they hope to have the first phase – including the revamped hotel but probably not the spa or the second course – ready sometime next year.
The scheme is expected to provide a major boost for employment in an area which has suffered severely through the recession as well as bringing in thousands more tourists, particularly from North America and Scandinavia, to this island off Scotland’s west coast.
Mr Davies and Ms Nye have already taken over the salaries of the four members of staff employed to maintain the empty hotel and look after the golf course and expect to hire several more employees in the near future.
Mr Davies and Ms Nye have bought the Machrie through a limited liability partnership which will then hand over the day-today development of the project to Golf3000 and G3K, two consultancies specialising in golf resorts, travel and marketing.
Mike Russell, the SNP MSP for Argyll and Bute, which includes Islay, told The Times yesterday: “I very much welcome investment in Islay and making the facilities of the highest standard is doubly welcome.”
And he added: “Islands need to compete that much harder given the costs and problems of access and this seems the right way to do it.”
Mr Davies and Baroness Nye know the re-vamped Machrie will need enough quality to appeal to the North American market but also be affordable enough to keep the locals onside – who are crucial to the resort’s viability during the lean winter months.
But they believe that the combination of Islay’s reputation as a top whisky tourist destination, with its eight distilleries, and the golf will make it very saleable in Germany, in Scandinavia, in the United States and in Canada – which are all top target markets.
Norman MacDonald, the Captain of Islay Golf Club said: “I am delighted that the Machrie Hotel and Golf Links have been bought and after initial talks with the new owners, I am confident that the future of Islay Golf Club is in safe hands. We look forward to working together with the new owners”.
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