Britain’s most exclusive golf club to open

An exclusive golf club with £200,000 joining fees aimed at super-rich foreigners is set to open at St Andrews in less than three years’ time. It will be the only private members’ golf club at the ‘home of golf’.

The £25 million, 19-hole (18 holes plus a bye hole to settle matches) St Andrews International Golf Club is being built in spite of the Scottish Golf Union’s calls that there are too many large golf courses in the country to meet demand.

Membership will be invitation-only and targeted at wealthy people internationally. Joining fees will range from £75,000 to £200,000, depending on one of the two types of membership available, with annual subscriptions of approximately £5,000.

It is believed that this will make St Andrews International Golf Club the most expensive golf club to join in British history, eclipsing the likes of Loch Lomond and Queenwood in Surrey, which are both reported to command five and six figure joining fees.

Situated on the former Feddinch Estate, a 245-acre farm, the golf club, which is currently being constructed, will be just one and a half miles from the Old Course, St Andrews.

Tom Weiskopf, winner of the 1973 Open Championship, has designed the course, ‘The Feddinch’.

St Andrews International Golf Club director Ewan McKay said that construction started several months ago and the majority of the holes have now been shaped.

He added: “The market for this place is basically people resident some distance away, more than likely overseas. We’ve had big interest from Asia in particular.

“The idea is that they can come here for a week and stay at their home at the home of golf, and we will then arrange their golf.

“That is very appealing to them. I find it quite extraordinary that there is no such thing as a private golf club with its own private golf course at the home of golf.”

Scotia Investments LP, which owns the site, is financing the development, which is being project managed by Christie and Partners of Dundee.