Dubai World look to buy some Prime Scottish Real Estate – Loch Lomond Golf Course

By any one’s definition of the word “luxury,” a golf course has to be up there. I mean, giving over several acres of prime real estate, covering it with lush, green grass that gets more attention than a new-born infant and persuading a lot of middle-aged men to pay $150,000 for the privilege of knocking a little white ball around with a stick sounds like luxury to me.

That is the price of membership of Loch Lomond golf club – Scotland’s most expensive golf course - $150,000 upfront, plus an annual fee of $7,500. Only members can invite you to play on the course and members are discouraged from playing too often and are reminded that Loch Lomond is “intended as an international club for the occasional use of members and their guests and not meant as their primary club”. Nick Faldo said of the lush fairways and manicured greens: “This is the finest golf course in Europe.”

Despite a healthy membership, some high-profile departures recently, including membership secretary Donald Macdonald and golf professional Colin Campbell have prompted rumors of an imminent sale.

The potential buyer is rumored to be Dubai World, who are also rumored to be looking to buy the Gleneagles hotel along with it’s three gold courses.

A subsidiary of Dubai World, Leisurecorp, recently purchased Turnberry where The Open will be staged in 2009. Asked to comment on the possible sale and staff departures, a spokesman in New York for Loch Lomond Golf Club said: “We choose not to engage in speculation about the club or about employment matters.”

Where golf originated, is, of course, one the most-hotly-debated arguments on the planet, but I can hear graves being turned in all over Scotland from here.

Source.