Arnold Palmer is set to create his first golf course in Scotland at Castle Stuart near Inverness.
The 85-year-old seven-time major winner, whose course design group has built dozens of courses around the world, will join forces with Castle Stuart’s managing partner, Mark Parsinen, and his team to create a second 18-hole layout on the Moray Firth.
Plans for the venue’s new course will be submitted within the next couple of months, and it is expected that work will get underway early in the new year. Castle Stuart, which hosted the Scottish Open for three years from 2011, and will return to the rota in 2016, opened in 2009 and it is hoped that the new links will be open by 2019.
Palmer,who won his second Open title at Royal Troon in 1962, is expected to make a trip to the Highlands in the summer.
Parsinen, who also co-designed Kingsbarns in Fife, said: “We have been in discussion for more than a year now with the Arnold Palmer Group and we are delighted that it has joined the partnership at Castle Stuart Golf Links.”
Stuart McColm, Castle Stuart Golf Links’ general manager, added: “Having two world-class courses in Inverness, together with all the other great courses in the Highlands, will undoubtedly drive more people to this area and have a significant economic impact.”