STUART McColm must be getting used to picking up prizes.
A year ago the general manager of Castle Stuart Golf Club collected Golf Tourism Scotland’s Gold Standard Award for Golf Course of the Year, an award that saw the new Inverness course beat off competition from Stuart’s previous employers Kingsbarns and the Old Course in St Andrews.
Then, just a few weeks ago, he collected a Highlands and Islands Tourism Award for Outstanding Contribution to Highlands and Islands Tourism.
In between, Stuart acknowledges, he and Castle Stuart have experienced a whirlwind year.
It was 12 months ago, the European Tour first arrived at Castle Stuart, scouting out the course as a potential location for the Scottish Open.
And come to Castle Stuart it did, unfortunately coinciding with some of the worst July weather in living memory, resulting in a rare day when Stuart dreaded going to work.
"I really thought we’d lost the golf course. Not nice," he admitted.
The course survived, however, and the Scottish Open will be returning in 2012 when Stuart hopes it will have an even bigger contingent of star players.
That it did survive is thanks not just to Castle Stuart’s own hard-working team, but the support the course received from the community in its hour of need from other golf clubs, local firms, Highland Council and the public at large who all rallied to ensure it remained playable.
"There was a community spirt here that the European Tour had never seen anything like," Stuart said.
However, when developer Mark Parsinen first told him about his plans for an Inverness golf course, Stuart could not picture it, even though he had been brought up in the Highland Capital.
"All I knew was that it was between Fort George and Inverness," he said.
"The view from here is one that most Invernessians don’t know, but it is one that I’ve come to appreciate. When you are doing visiting golf, visitors want to see the views and I think that’s the charm of the place. You are actually playing towards the landmarks."
Stuart moved to Inverness with his parents in the 1970s and attended Raigmore Primary and Millburn Academy, but when it came to a career it looked as though oil rather than golf would be his first industry of choice — until he started attending Inverness College.
"I decided fluid mechanics was not going to be where it was for me," he said.
"I opted to get into golf, but there are not many opportunities to get into golf as a career and that is one of the things the industry is looking at. I wasn’t good enough to be a professional, so the only way in was a greenkeeper."
Getting an entry into a golfing career proved difficult until Stuart had a break caddying for Jocky Thompson in the final of the Nairn four-day open.
Jocky was the greens convener at Inverness Golf Club and through him Stuart eventually secured a summer job at the Culcabock course. From there he moved on to a season as Invergordon’s sole greenkeeper.
"That was in at the deep end," he said, revealing that he not only sought advice from his more experienced counterparts at Royal Dornoch, but machinery too.
"The budget wasn’t fantastic. The smelter had closed down and the money wasn’t there, but I had the passion and desire to learn."
At the same time he was writing letters to seek further opportunities and his efforts were rewarded when Walter Wood at St Andrews invited him to join his team for the Dunhill Cup.
"I went down and spent two years at the Old Course," Stuart recalled. "I was on the cutting crew, which was quite an elite crew at the time, cutting this hallowed turf."
However, in order to secure the qualifications he needed to pursue his career, Stuart decided there was no way he could combine his 5am to 1pm day of hard physical labour with a college course, and left the job in 1989 to concentrate on his education where his efforts were rewarded with a national award for student of the year.
"That wasn’t by accident," he said. "First, I was thirsty for knowledge, but second I was more mature, 23, and I really wanted to focus on something that interested me."
His success led on to a 10-year career in golf course construction which regularly took him onto the continent and particularly to Germany.
It was when his company was contracted to build the new Kingsbarns golf course in Fife that his professional relationship with Mark Parsinen began and Stuart became course manager at what soon established itself as one of the top 50 golf courses in the world.
Then, when the decision was taken to do it all over again close to Inverness, home-boy Stuart was a natural choice to get involved as project director.
As course manager, Stuart has also found it slightly bizarre to be in the public spotlight at things like the Highlands and Islands Tourism Awards, but is pleased to see the tourism sector has recognised the value Castle Stuart has brought to the area.
"One of our goals is trying to highlight the charm of Inverness," he said.
"Nairn and Dornoch have stolen the limelight, but building a third course has put us into the limelight."
Having a third world class course alongside Nairn and Dornoch has certainly lifted the area’s profile and made it more attractive to golf tourists, with European and North Americans increasingly joining Scots and British golfers in getting the message that it is an easy place to come to and play.
Another element which has not been overlooked at Castle Stuart is that golf is fun. Too many modern courses, Stuart believes, have an eye on championships and forget to make the course a pleasurable experience for the average handicap 17 golfer.
"Do you want to have a hard time and lose 12 golf balls? No, people want to have a great time, but I think developers and designers have lost their way a bit," he said.
Yet at the same time, even with its wide, attractive fairways, Castle Stuart can still provide a challenge and, for players in the Scottish Open proved an ideal preparation for the following week’s Open Championship. Stuart pointed out that Darren Clarke, the 2011 Open winner at Royal St George’s Golf Club, was among this year’s Castle Stuart entrants.
"When the average golfer sees people like that scoring low and getting birdies, the message that goes out there is that they want some of that," Stuart said.
For those who do play at Castle Stuart, 98 per cent or more go away happy, but Stuart is not prepared to rest on his laurels. "There’s a tremendous sense of satisfaction, but this is still a work in progress," he said.
"We are not where we want to be, but if we did get to that stage, I’d probably walk away because there would be no challenge any more."
Up until last year, hosting the Scottish Open was a wild dream, and one that the course certainly did not expect to achieve just 18 months after opening. Despite the atrocious conditions experienced in July, the competition’s return next year is something Stuart is looking forward to.
"The European Tour don’t want a lot of changes made to the place, despite Mr Montgomery saying we need to narrow the fairways and make it tougher," Stuart added.
"Well, on the first day, he missed the first fairway, which is one of the widest fairway we have."
Even though Barclay’s Bank has withdrawn its sponsorship, Stuart is confident golfers will still find the Scottish Open and Castle Stuart an attractive proposition.
"Players have to hold their hands up and say they are supporting the tour," he said. "It happened in Ireland. The Irish didn’t have a sponsor, but they went over there in droves."
With plenty of work still to be done, his two children happily settled in Culloden Academy and wife Elaine also enjoying the move north, Stuart acknowledged he is at Castle Stuart for the long haul, and that is fine by him.
"When I moved back, there was a bit of trepidation: was I doing the right thing?" he admitted.
"But there isn’t anything here I would add for my lifestyle anyway. We already have great golf, great restaurants — and great people."
