Close House comes of age for course designer

One man eagerly tracking the exploits of the array of ex-Ryder Cup players in action at the ISPS Handa PGA Seniors Championship is Scott Macpherson.

The New Zealander is the man who designed the Lee Westwood Colt Course which is the arena for battle this week at Close House.

Macpherson will be keen to see how the likes of Sam Torrance and Mark James handle the course he painstakingly designed to help owner Graham Wylie realise his ambitions for the north east resort.

The Kiwi had dreamed of pursuing a career in course architecture since the age of 15.

His passion saw him take a degree in horticulture covering a broad range of topics including irrigation and soil types and he then won a scholarship to study course architecture in California.

His Close House connection though arrived not in sunny California but in St Andrews where he met John Glendinning who was studying there and later became managing director of the venue.

When Wylie purchased Close House, Glendinning contacted Macpherson and opened talks about converting 'farmland into a golf course.

It was MacPherson’s first solo project and was six-and-a-half years in the planning.

Given a blank canvas but based on Harry Colt’s design ethos, Macpherson set about designing a course for everyone with less emphasis on distance and more on creating an interesting challenge to keep the golfer thinking.

He has subsequently worked on renovating the 'Filly' course to make work as 2 x 9 hole loops providing players with flexibility.