Deputy course manager Scott Aitchison celebrates 25 years at Royal Dornoch Golf Club
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Royal Dornoch Golf Club deputy course manager Scott “Scoosh” Aitchison has marked 25-years at the club.
Aitchison has been an integral part of the team charged with a series of changes to the Highland links in recent years, and he is sure members and guests from around the world will be thrilled when they visit this season.
Scott (48) was presented with an engraved crystal bowl to mark his years of service to the golf club.
The 10-handicapper, who was lured north from Prestwick St Nicholas, said: “My boss at the time, Bob Mackay, was from Dornoch and when he got the job as successor to Robert Patterson, who had got the gig at Royal Aberdeen, he brought me here to be the first assistant.
“When I first came up, I was on a career path and thought Royal Dornoch would look good on the CV before I travelled the world.
“But I have loved life in Dornoch and at the golf club so much that 25 years later I am still here!
“I’m often asked why I have never gone and got my own course but the challenge is different here every day. It never gets boring.
“We have to present the golf courses the way the members and visitors want them and get our infrastructure right over the winter to make sure it’s spot-on.
“We have classic links characteristics that must be preserved, so I’d stand up in front of anyone and say when it comes to revetting bunkers we have the best builders in the world.
“It has been great taking on the big challenges in-house, starting with the third and moving on to the massive changes to the 14th, the 10th and 12th. I was initially dead against (changing) the third. Now I think it is among the finest bits of work we have done here.
“I am really looking forward to what the golfers make of the changes to the eighth since the end of last season. We have opened-up the seventh and eighth to make the most of the amazing 180-degree views and they are now being played the way that was envisaged before all the technological changes in golf.”
Scott admits he has a soft spot for the Struie Course, which has been moving up the Scottish rankings, encouraging more play from both visitors and members.
“Back when I started, we were a fragmented squad and I was charged with running the Struie,” he recalled.
“At the turn of the century there were ambitions to make it a genuine championship course. It has had ups and downs, but there is wind in the sails again after hosting the R&A Senior Women’s and Men’s Championships last summer. It’s well worth playing in its own right.”
