Plans to re-open the Royal Golf Hotel adjacent to the clubhouse and first tee at Royal Dornoch Golf Club will be welcome all over Sutherland, and in lots of places around the world.
We first stayed in the Royal Golf Hotel back in 1983 – our first visit to find out why Tom Watson had been so impressed. The hotel wasn’t great then, but it was cosy, friendly and the food was plentiful. If I remember correctly the weather was awful that week, but the drying rooms and heated club store helped us recover from the drenching every day.
Over the years we stayed in the hotel often, as did lots of other regular visitors. We were quite a community. But the management changed, for the worse, and then did so again, and then again.
Ultimately the fools running the hotel literally ran it into the ground, with expensive room rates, crap food and worse service. They closed the door when the Swallow chain went bust and the town and golf club lost an important resource.
It’s a strange fact that in a tourist resort with a shortage of accommodation hotels keep closing. Visitors wanting to stay in Dornoch weren’t able to, because the fools running the hotels couldn’t keep them open.
That’s all changing now with the news that a professional outfit will reopen the Royal Golf Hotel and restore it to former glories.
Hotel re-opening brings good news for Dornoch
A new company has been formed to run the once prestigious, 22-bed hotel which overlooks the first tee of Royal Dornoch.Up to 30 full and part-time jobs are expected to be created by the move which has been widely welcomed locally.
It is especially good news, coming in the same week as the town reels from the announcement of 29 job losses at the local abattoir.
The Royal Golf Hotel closed in December 2006 after parent company, the London and Edinburgh Swallow Group, went into liquidation.
It was bought shortly afterwards by international businessman Peter de Savary, who gained planning consent for a massive upgrade and extension, with the aim of turning it into a top class luxury holiday complex.
But Mr de Savary pulled the plug on the venture in May 2008 and put the 115-year-old building back on the market with an asking price of £5 million. It was then bought by a consortium of North businessmen including David Sutherland, chairman of Highland construction firm, Tulloch Homes Group.
Mr Sutherland is also part-owner of the Royal Marine Hotel in Brora and the Dunain Park Hotel in Inverness.
It emerged this week that Mr Sutherland and his business partner, George Fraser, have now joined forces with Grant Sword and American Mark Parsinen, developers of the Castle Stuart Golf Links in Inverness, which opened in July last year.
Mr Sword is well known in the Sutherland area as he previously owned and operated the Royal Golf for 12 years until 2002 when it was sold, along with another two, to Swallow Hotels.
He said earlier this week: “Castle Stuart has just been acclaimed as the best new course anywhere in the Highlands, so we’re getting a lot of golf visitors to the Highlands.
“But whilst we have plans for a hotel on site, it’s not going to come to fruition quickly enough.
“We have reached an agreement with David Sutherland whereby we will help him re-open the Royal Golf and the four of us have formed a small consortium to run it.
“I think it will help the whole of the Highland golf market because a lot of the feed back we are getting from golf operators is that Dornoch is still a huge attraction, yet there is a lack of accommodation.”
The formation of the new company has now linked the Royal Golf together with Castle Stuart Golf Links, the Royal Marine and the Dunain Park Hotel.
Work is currently underway to prepare the Royal Golf for opening at the beginning of April.
But, according to Mr Sword: “Most of the hotel is actually in very good shape. There was a substantial £1 million investment made to it in 1999/2000 so it is in remarkably good condition.
“There has also been a caretaker there ever since it closed and he has looked after the place. Still, we do need to bring it up to speed.
“It is being totally re-decorated inside and out and new beds will be bought but otherwise it’s just general improvements. Some of the flat roof extensions will be demolished.
“It’ll be back to its former glory and we believe it will be a four-star standard facility when it opens on 1st April.”
Mr Sword said he had recently contacted over 600 golf and travel agents worldwide to tell them that the hotel would shortly be back in operation.
“They are all delighted to have it back after a three year gap. The general consensus is: ‘Hallelujah!’ Dornoch and the whole of the Highlands have been a lot poorer for its absence. I’m going over to the annual PGA Golf Merchandise Show in Orlando, Florida, at the end of the month to sell our wares so will be talking about it there.”
Chairman of Dornoch Community Council, Yvonne Ross, said she was delighted to hear the hotel was re-opening.
“It’s brilliant news because we desperately need both beds and employment. As far as I am aware every establishment was booked out in Dornoch last August. You couldn’t get a bed in the entire place.”
Do you have Highlands experiences you can share with our readers? Please add your comments, suggestions and memories in the Comments box. The more news and views the better!
Post Footer automatically generated by Add Post Footer Plugin for wordpress.
Comments on this entry are closed.