ST ANDREWS: THE GREENKEEPER’S TALE

Author: Gordon Moir

Published by: Golf and Grass 247

Paperback, 408 pages

RRP: $39.50 (Booktopia, Feb 2023)

Being custodian of the famed courses at the Home of Golf, St Andrews, is considered by most to be pinnacle of sports turf management. For 27 years, Gordon Moir was part of the inner sanctum at St Andrews and for 18 of those was Links superintendent, a position he held until his retirement in 2018.

It’s the sort of tenure and experience that screams for a book to be written and Moir had every intention of doing so, however, life just got in the way. Then came a global pandemic and all of a sudden Moir had no excuse not to put pen to paper. The end result is the impressive 408-page ‘St Andrews: The Greenkeeper’s Tale’ in which Moir presents “a selection of stories, factual and sometimes irrelevant or downright bizarre, of 27 years working at St Andrews Links”.

Moir began his golf course management career as an apprentice at Fraserburgh Golf Club just before turning 17. Fraserburgh is a links course in the northeast of Scotland and is the seventh oldest golf club in the world, formed in 1777. After finishing his apprenticeship there in 1980, Moir was given the position of head greenkeeper on a trial basis which was eventually made permanent after just a few months.

In 1991 Moir moved to St Andrews to be head greenkeeper on the Eden Course under the direction of then Links supervisor Walter Woods. At the time, the Eden Course was one of four managed by the St Andrews Links Trust, the others being the Old Course, New Course and Jubilee Course. A further 27 holes – the Strathtyrum and Balgove courses – had just been completed, opening for play in 1993.

In October 2000, Moir was promoted to the position of Links superintendent which gave him responsibility for all turf matters across the six courses along with the workshop and equipment and gardening team. Having been part of the Links crew for the 1995 and 2000 Open Championships, Moir would oversee preparations for the next three Opens that St Andrews’s famed Old Course would host in 2005, 2010 and 2015. He also added the 2007 and 2013 Women’s British Opens, the 2004 Amateur Championship, the 2008 Curtis Cup and the 2018 Senior Open to a very impressive and extensive tournament CV.

The book begins on the last Sunday in July, 1991, when a young Moir arrives in St Andrews to be interviewed for the role of head greenkeeper of the Eden Course. At that point the superintendent of Fraserburgh, Moir had finished preparing the course for a tournament that morning and had driven the three hours to St Andrews for the interview. Although he had no great expectations of getting the job, he obviously impressed as just a few weeks later he and his young family were moving south, beginning a near three-decade involvement with the most famous turf in world golf.

Moir goes on to chart his early days at St Andrews and doesn’t mince words when describing the turf and workshop conditions which greeted him upon arrival. He describes the complexity of the Links Trust set up and its many committees of management, what it was like working underneath Woods, who at the time was one of the most well-known figures in greenkeeping, and some of the staffing challenges he confronted. He touches upon the 1995 and Millennium Opens before devoting a chapter to landing the top position in greenkeeping and some of the changes he would institute as a result.

A chapter is fittingly devoted to his first Open in charge (2005) which was also the first for then Old Course superintendent Euan Grant (ATM readers will remember Grant spoke at the 2010 Australian Turfgrass Conference on the Gold Coast). At the same time, Moir was heavily involved in the planning and then the eventual construction of the Castle Course, the seventh of the St Andrews Links courses and what he describes as one of the largest projects he was involved with during his time there.

While he admits the environment was the furthest thing from his mind when he started out in greenkeeping, in the chapter ‘Working with Nature’ Moir details his awakening to the importance of being an environmental custodian, outlining several initiatives he oversaw at St Andrews. During his 18 years in charge, Moir became ever increasingly involved in the proactive environmental management of the Links and surrounding areas and was the main driver behind its push to be more sustainable and environmentally friendly. Under his watch, St Andrews Links became the first course on the rota of Open venues to gain Golf Environment Organisation certification in 2011.

Other chapters are dedicated to the 2010 and 2015 Opens, other tournaments he had the privilege of hosting, as well as some of the many famous people that a man in his position is fortunate enough to meet, among them golfing greats Jack Nicklaus, Tom Watson, Gary Player and Tiger Woods. He also outlines the controversial changes made to the Old Course starting in 2011 and the backlash received from some sectors of the local and international golfing communities.

A member of BIGGA (and its predecessor SIGGA) since 1980, Moir has at times held various Board positions and in 2022 was elected the association’s president. Towards the end of the book, he devotes a chapter to his involvement with BIGGA, its importance throughout his career and the many wonderful education and networking opportunities it afforded him with industry colleagues.

As current day BIGGA president, in early January the Australian Sports Turf Managers Association announced that Moir would be heading to Adelaide as one of the international keynote speakers for this year’s Australian Sports Turf Management Conference in June. No doubt many of the stories and experiences which Moir writes about in his book will be shared with delegates during the education sessions and maybe over a whiskey or two in the afterhours…