An award-winning golf architect is returning to the Highlands to oversee work on the north’s newest course.
Stuart Rennie has designed the new Torvean Golf Course in the outskirts of Inverness.
The 36-year-old is from Muir of Ord and remains a member at Royal Dornoch, although he currently works out of Glasgow.
Torvean is his first 18-hole course under the name of his own company, having previously worked for five times Open Champion Peter Thomson in his design practice in Australia and in London.
He initially studied landscape architecture before specialising in golf design – and is now an award-winning member of the European Institute of Golf Course Architects
Preparatory work began at Torvean in the last few weeks, with marker posts set up to show the route of how the course will shape up when it is ready for play in 2019.
The course is being relocated to free up the land on which it currently sits for the construction of the West Link road.
It means the course will be contained in one site rather than split by the A82 and General Booth Road.
Mr Rennie has designed the new layout to make use of the sloping nature of the new site – but said that the course would stick closely to the principles of the existing Torvean.
He said: “It’s very exciting, especially being so close to home.
“We had a brief of providing a like for like golf course in terms of par, distance and the like, although health and safety parameters for modern day golf courses come into play.
“That effectively means you use a larger portion of land.
“It’s a very traditional heathland style golf course. We’re trying to implement a native planting palette throughout so we’re looking to have heather, fescue grasses and sort of native tree planting for boundary planting.
“So it should be fairly open grassland and create biodiversity with plenty of wildlife once it is all created so it’s a great opportunity.”
The course is the first to be built in the north since the opening of Castle Stuart.
Mr Rennie added: “It’s quite a good dynamic for my business with the community getting a golf club which is going to be played.
“There’s probably quite a lot of people can’t play the likes of Castle Stuart because they maybe can’t afford it.
“This should be affordable to all and it’s a members club at the end of the day so that’s a nice thing as well.”
