Castle Stuart a course on three levels

WITHIN minutes of meeting Mark Parsinen it is obvious he has the origins and history of golf in his blood.

The American said: “We did our best to give every hole its own distinctive personality and all the holes fit together like in a movie.

“When I first got into this business I read everything by golf architects such as Harry Colt, Donald Ross and A. W. Tillinghast but Alistair MacKenzie was the one who made the most sense to me.

“I played golf as a youngster and competitively at university. In my teens I played public courses with friends where, if you hit it off the fairway the rough was very short, you could find your ball and play it. If you could only do something really good with the ball you could come from nowhere to win the hole. When I went to play university golf, the better courses got harder and harder. The harder the courses became, and the better we got at the game, the less fun we had. Looking at old pictures I often wonder where the notion of a fairway and long rough come from because, in the old days, the sheep certainly didn’t know where the fairway was.

“MacKenzie once said ‘the old game is most charming without a signpost to the green’. That is what we have tried to do at Castle Stuart.”

He added: “Our golf course is on three levels, the six-metre level – six holes with absolute immediacy to the sea and, if you are backing up looking at a putt, if you’re not careful you could fall in.

“Another six holes on what we call the mezzanine level, where you think you are on the sea because you can’t see the holes down below. Then we have the balcony, a number of holes on the back-nine at high elevation.”

Playing Castle Stuart is an uplifting experience, Parsinen and his team has managed to create a stunning course.