Hebridean drive for top-flight golf

It is regarded as one of the most exciting projects in European golf, creating one a top-class links golf course, and one of the most sustainable in the UK.

It is regarded as one of the most exciting projects in European golf, creating one a top-class links golf course, and one of the most sustainable in the UK.

Old Tom Morris's course at Askernish on South Uist has been restored through volunteer effort at a cost of only £50,000 and now the world's golf fans are beating a path to the first tee.

Kenny Dalglish will today mark the beginning of a new chapter for the course which was effectively lost for the best part of seven decades.

It is a potent symbol of the renaissance of the island, which two years ago was the subject of Scotland's largest ever community buyout. The course is expected to boost the local economy and underpin the rest of the community regeneration programme.

In its original form, Askernish had the distinction of being the only golf club in the world to have a pipe tune named after it. South Uist Golf Club is a Strathspey by the celebrated Benbecula piper Lachlan Bàn MacCormick.

Born in the mid-19th century, he became an enthusiast for golf after the island's largely absentee owner Lady Gordon Cathcart had the course at Askernish, on the south-west of the island, laid out by Morris in 1891.

Old Tom is seen as a father of the modern game, a four-times winner of the Open Championship and designer of scores of courses in Scotland, including Muirfield, Carnoustie, Prestwick, Royal Dornoch, and Nairn, as well as others in Northern Ireland and Eire.

But many feel that he created his masterpiece amid the dunes of South Uist. The Atlantic Ocean breaks on the white strand just beside the course; there are views to Barra in the south; and Trinneabhal, Airneabhal, Stulaphal and the other Uist hills which once protected Bonnie Prince Charlie from capture can be seen to the east and north-east. But while MacCormick's tune is still being played today, Morris's course became hidden beneath the sand, grass and flowers that are the machair on Uist's often windswept western coast.

In 1936, some of the course was flattened for use as a runway by Northern Scottish airways, which was pioneering daily flights to the island from Renfrew Airport. A nine-hole course was subsequently laid out slightly to the north. It became a 12-hole course but, in 1970, it was changed to a nine-hole course with 18 tees.

Now, 100 years after Morris's death, some of his original greens have been reinstated as part of the new 18-hole course. It will be opened officially today by Dalglish, who is honorary president of the renamed Askernish Golf Club, a popular choice given his passion for golf and the preponderance of Celtic supporters on South Uist.

It was two years ago that Gordon Irvine, a former British greenkeeper of the year who was behind the restoration work at Royal Cinque Ports, in Deal, Kent, offered to advise members at the nine-hole Askernish Golf Club on how to look after their course. He had initially offered his services free in return for some of the fishing.

He suggested that a group of volunteers could work to bring the course back to its original state and so began the restoration project. Funds were raised through sponsorship and by selling life memberships across the globe, to golfers in places such as North America and Scandinavia.

Mr Irvine, aided by other golf enthusiasts including architect Martin Ebert, retraced Morris's original 18 holes and laid out plans for the new course. The fairways and greens were developed gradually, with the volunteers ensuring the course would also be sustainable. Club officials say there will be an "environmentally-friendly approach" to the maintenance of the course, with the use of natural fertilisers encouraged.

As the finishing touches were being put to the modest clubhouse yesterday, club chairman Ralph Thompson prayed the weather would hold for its official opening today.

"The response has been amazing. We have about 100 members with many from overseas. They pay £125 if they are local and £100 for somebody off the island. We already have 90 people just wanting to play on Friday. Club captain Donald MacInnes will tee off first with an old hickory club that was found here in 1951. Then Kenny Dalglish will follow.

"But one of the others is Ernie Payne who has played every golf course in Scotland but was then asked by Melvyn Morrow, Tom Morris's grandson, to play every Tom Morris course in the UK. He has kept this one till the last."

The Askernish restoration is the jewel in the crown for Stòras Uibhist, the community body which manages the 93,000 acres over Eriskay, Benbecula, and South Uist which were formerly owned by South Uist Estates.

The island has suffered from a 12% decline in population in the 10 years from 1991 to 2001 and latest figures show around 1800 people live in the community.

With VisitScotland figures taken from research on 70 courses around Scotland showing that the value of golf tourism from these alone is more than £96.7m, it is hoped the restored Morris course will bring its own cash injection to the local economy. The development is forecast to deliver more than £1m a year. It will also underpin much of the rest of the regeneration programme, which includes five wind turbines which in the long-term could earn another £1m a year.

There is, however, one small metaphorical divot. A case is pending at the Scottish Land Court taken by seven of the 11 crofters at Askernish with shares in the common grazing. They claim their access to the land has been prejudiced by the way the golf course has been developed.

According to Willie Macdonald, chairman of the Askernish Township Grazings Committee, the original agreement shows that when the farmland at Askernish was being reorganised as a crofting township in 1922, Lady Gordon Cathcart had simply reserved the right to play golf on part of it.

"The key question the land court must answer is whether this reservation gives all subsequent landlords, including the present community landlord, the unfettered right to do what they like on the machair as long as it has to do with the playing of golf. If we are successful we don't want to remove a community facility that has been there for years, we will say behave yourselves. If you want to extend the golf course come and talk to the crofters first."

Angus MacMillan, Stòras Uibhist chairman, is confident that action will be successfully defended, and is already looking ahead to improving the facilities on South Uist, with the introduction of a modern ferry service.

At present, it can take more than seven hours to get from South Uist to Oban and islanders are desperate to see a service to Mallaig introduced. Mr MacMillan said: "With the improvements to the Mallaig road, you will be able to get to Fort William in three-quarters of an hour. If the ferry timings were right, you could get to Glasgow and back in a day. But everything we're trying to do here in creating jobs and keeping our young folk depends on such a modern ferry service."

Hole stories

Askernish's 18 holes are named after local and historical personalities, places and folklore.

The first at 490 yards is Clanranald, named after the Macdonald clan who historically held South Uist.

The fourth at 324 yards is Flora, named after Flora Macdonald - famed for the help she gave Bonnie Prince Charlie to evade capture - who was born a little to the north of Askernish.

The seventh at 438 yards is Cabinet Minister, after the name of the ship which appeared in the film of Compton MacKenzie's book Whisky Galore. The real ship which sank in the Sound of Eriskay, to the south of Askernish, was the SS Politician.

The 14th at 141 yards is St Valery, named after the Battle for St Valery-en-Caux at the beginning of the Second World War. The 51st Highland Division was forced to surrender after days of fighting in northern France.