David Scott is one of the more well-known and respected administrators working in golf.
David was born and grew-up in St. Andrews while his working career has been brilliantly capped already being on-hand in a key role at the opening of three now renowned golf courses in the St. Andrews region.
I have enjoyed the great pleasure of knowing David for some 30-years – from the day Prince Andrew, Duke of York and also five-time Open Champion Peter Thomson were guests-of-honour for the official opening of the Dukes Course at St. Andrews to shaking David’s hand on the Monday of the 2000 Open Championship week and with David proudiy in attendance as the inaugural Director of Golf at the opening of Kingsbarns Links.
I recall also congratulating David on his appointment as the Director of Operations at the Old Course Golf Hotel Resort & Spa and more recently after his proud move to now working as General Manager of the highly-acclaimed Dumbarnie Links.
So, what an enormous pleasure for me to visit David at Dumbarnie Links not only to again shake his hand as the current Captain of the PGA of Great Britain and Ireland but also to personally congratulate him in being honoured as Honorary Professional of the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews.
I sat with David over a coffee within the wonderful surrounds of the Dumbarnie Links clubhouse to chat with him on a career already boasting a golf bag bursting full of accomplishments and rewards.
My first question to David was to ask how much he was enjoying his role as PGA Captain of GB & I?
I took the captaincy on 3rd April, 2025 and it was a great honour. I am in this position for one year, so it will take me away from Dumbarnie Links for something like 15 to 16 times during the year when I attend the final championships throughout GB & Ireland along with a couple of championships abroad.
So, I will be representing in a ceremonial role, the membership of which we have in excess of 8,000 members, and so it’s a huge honour for me.
More recently and in these last couple of weeks, I was offered the very lofty role of Honorary Professional of the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews. So being from St. Andrews and to have been presented with this has been mind-blowing. I am just so proud and I have never really stopped smiling, and I just cannot believe how lucky I am.
I know many members of the club having been in the area for the last 25-years having worked at Kingsbarns, the Old Course Hotel and now Dumbarnie Links so I am in the club every couple of months probably having a bit of lunch with the members but now to be able to walk in there very proudly and speak with the members, and also the great team they have in there as well, is a massive honour.
Qn: Did you have any inkling the appointment was at hand?
I had no clue whatsoever. There had been some rumblings that suggested I would be an obvious choice given my background and that I was from St. Andrews and what I have contributed to the game. I was receiving phone calls that I would be a good choice and indeed for that role.
I completely ignored that question and did not wish to entertain it. It was not for me to comment on that, at all. The general board had my name amongst other candidates but I thought I was the man. So, I was and am, thrilled to bits.
Your wonderful history of having worked in St. Andrews goes back more than a few years?
I was born and bred in St. Andrews I left at age of 19 to take up a position at Blairgowrie Golf Club ahead of my first Head pro job being at Letham Grange followed by Balbirnie Park and my first big appointment was Director of Golf at
Kingsbarns Golf Links in 2000.
I was there at Kingsbarns six months before we opened in July 2000 – the week of The Open Championship – and what better week could there have been to open-up. Those who remember the week of the 2000 Open recall it was a perfect week weather-wise. That was just wonderful for us and following a week of hosting 1, 426 golfers, so that was a fabulous start to Kingsbarns and our reputation.
So, I had a very happy eight-and-a-years at Kingsbarns and then I moved to join the Kohler Company and the Old Course Hotel and the Dukes Course. Initially, it was as the golf manager before I have handed the title as Director of Operations in 2013.
That was very onerous to start with over-seeing seven beverage and food outlets, housekeeping, maintenance, front desk & concierge, golf, spa to name just a few.
Fortunately, through just hard work and wishing to learn a great deal I managed to get into a more senior managerial role but then toward the end of my tenure at the Old Course Hotel, I did get a little bored or rather I was missing the excitement of working purely at a golf course, so when the opportunity presented itself to become General Manager at Dumbarnie Links, I jumped at it. I received the role and commenced in January 2020.
I then got everything all set-up, arranged for the appointment of a head pro, an accountant, head of reservations, head chef, a head of food-and-beverage as well. So, we’re all set-up and looking forward to opening and then COVID
hit in March 2020.
That was a huge challenge for us but we opened at the end of May and initially it was Fife residents only, then the legal boundaries for people to move around was throughout Scotland so we still managed to make a little crust at the end of the season which was amazing as the team worked really hard. We then just got busier and busier each year.
The course was recognised as well as a very good test of championship golf as we were chosen to host the Women’s Scottish Open in 2021. It was a great nchampionship seeing some of the best women’s players, as well, including Lydia Ko and Dame Laura Davis. Ryan O’Toole won that week. We just loved to have been able to host such a great week and our Agronomy team primed the course superbly for the best player in the world.
How proud are you looking out this window overlooking Dumbarnie of the facility here?
Super proud. I am delighted that team members have worked really hard to get a consistency of service prior to playing our Links. From the initial call to our Reservations Team, then on the day being welcomed by our Meet and Greet team, the Pro shop and F&B team member, it’s a huge team effort. That helps a great deal in the overall experience of the day. Then the condition of the golf course is the biggest factor of any day, and Grahame Taylor and his team have been since 2018 getting the golf course sewn-in and now prepping it every day for golf.
5 years old today! Thank you to all who have supported us through Covid and when normality returned. #TeamDumbarnie @LINKSMagazine @GlobalGolfPost @Troon @troonint @LandscapesUnLLC @GT511 pic.twitter.com/p1SZCFG8q4
— Dumbarnie Golf Links (@dumbarniegolf) May 29, 2025
Grahame’s team have done a wonderful job. The feedback from our guests is very positive and we’ve won three of the last four years ‘Best Scottish Golfing Experience”.
So, we’re hearing and people are telling us we are doing a good job, but, we keep our feet on the ground and try and get better every day we can, and try and keep on improving.
What are you looking forward going forward?
It was a great honour most recently for Dumbarnie Links to host the GB & I Walker Cup squad and comprising such world class athletes. So, for the GB &I team to have now be visited Dumbarnie is another feather in our cap.
We have a very strong golf course that measures 7,600-yards so we can handle the big boys and girls, so if we were to be offered say a significant professional or elite amateur event we would definitely be interested in having a conversation.’
Of course, there is your most proud appointment as PGA Captain?
It is more of a ceremonial role. I was handed basically an itinerary so I have got to figure out how am I going to get to the tournaments. I was at Moor Park two weeks ago. I flew down on the Thursday and the penultimate day. I got there around lunchtime, went out on the course, spoke to a few players and then had dinner with the PGA workers or team staff, and then the next morning I was there shaking hands with every single player competing and wishing them well. I then went out and followed the last few groups ahead of
the prize-giving ceremony when I thanked all those involved and congratulate the winners.
Then that night I flew back home to Edinbugh and drove back to St Andrews, about an hour from the airport. So this is typically what will happen for future events. I have about 15 tournaments I will attend throughout the season.
It really kicks off from the Open Championship onwards, so that’s when a lot of the grand finals are held and towards the back end of the season such as the Pro/Captain Challenge with qualifying events all round Britain. They all culminate with the Grand Final in Italy so I will be heading out there.
So, I will be away from Dumbarnie Links for three weeks out of four but typically only two days at a time.
How many hats are you now wearing?
Four. I am President of the Caddie School for Soldiers a body that supports veterans who have returned from the battles of war with both physical and mental scars. Wars that ultimately are protecting our freedom.
We give them the opportunity to come and train as a caddy up at The Duke’s course for three-and-a-half weeks. We have a great caddy master in Davy Gilchrist who used to work at Kingsbarns Golf Links. He’s their caddie master for the best part of a month. They don’t have to be a scratch player but they do need to know what end of a club to hold onto to start with. Each day they will be out there caddying. Learning and listening, how to communicate with the golfer and then giving them advice about various golf-related matters such as wind direction, distances, lines from tees and putts and gradually they get better and better, fast-tracking their caddying skills so that by the end of the month they are very professional-like and pretty damn good.
What has now become a tradition of each session of the@CaddieSchoolVet is the walk around probably golf’s most famous 18 holes,@TheHomeofGolf The veterans were hosted by @davidscottPGA who knows a thing or two about shooting low scores on the Old Course. #OldCourse #Veterans pic.twitter.com/MguBkaOoyy
— Caddie School for Soldiers (@CaddieSchoolVet) March 24, 2025
We have the caddies working at 13 different courses now and with the program having been in operation since 2019. We’ve had over 70 alumni come through that with six per session attending, comprising of two US, two UK and two Canadian. About 75% of those who have gone through have taken-up caddying jobs in either a semi-professional or professional role.
They had left the forces having had a purpose. When on duty, they would up at 0600 in the morning, then shower at 0630, then have breakfast and at 0700 then they get their kit on and jump in an armoured vehicle by 0800, out in the battle zone, ducking bullets.
So, they come back from the fields of war to a small flat and they have no purpose, at all. So, we are giving them a purpose.
It’s incredible as it’s given them a future and allowing to get out in the open with their buddies caddying for players for some four-and-a-half hours with no stress. It’s given them a new lease of life considering the suicide rate for veterans is horrible. Shocking figures show that 21 veterans a day in America take their lives whereas around six to seven a day in the UK. It’s just horrible.
So that is one proud and poignant hat I wear. (Refer – https://caddieschoolforsoldiers.com/)
There’s my PGA hat, my role here at Dumbarnie Links as General Manager and then honorary professional at the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews.
You have shared your excitement in hosting Walker Cup squad members but also how exciting it going to be attending the Junior Ryder Cup?
The Junior Ryder Cup is being held on a golf course called the Nassau GC which is not so far from Bethpage Park Black. Stevie Gallacher captained the winning Junior Ryder Cup two years in Italy and the win was unexpected as on paper
they didn’t have a chance but he managed to boost their confidence together and they won which was wonderful.
Stevie’s been asked to again captain the team so as part of my role as Captain of the PGA of GB and Ireland I am then the official for the Junior Ryder Cup. I am super excited to see their skills out there and taking on the Americans and
hopefully doing the double that would be a huge honour for all in Europe. A day or two later I will be over at the Ryder Cup and hopefully do the double there, as well.
It has been wonderdful to sit down with you and again, congratulations for everything you have achieved and also your many years contributing to the ancient club-and-ball game we each love so much.