I played in a pro-am in Spain at Almenara Golf Club in 1999 where I met Edinburgh businessman Kevin Doyle. He talked enthusiastically about this piece of land he had bought next to Muirfield describing it as the ‘missing links.’ There was a golf course there a hundred years before named Archerfield and he told me that it was his ambition to recreate a links-type course over the same land – bring it back to life so to speak. Then in Barbados in January 2000, we spoke about it again and he offered me the opportunity to get involved.

Had you done any golf course design work before that?

I’d done a little bit of redesign work at Kedleston Park and Geneva Golf Club and it was something I had always wanted to get into. It was just a matter of getting the right opportunity.

When was the first time you came to Archerfield and what were you first impressions of the land?

I first came here in January 2001 and was impressed with the size of the land (approximately 540 acres) but was disappointed that all the natural features had been farmed-away over the years. Kevin then gave me six months to get my head around things and when I finally made the decision to get involved, he could not have been more supportive. He never told me what to do other than to suggest that he wanted the course to look like it had always been here and all we had done was mow the fairways and put the flags back in..

Being such a flat area did you ever think the project was beyond you?

Definitely not; it was a challenge I wanted to take on and I honestly never thought about failing in any way. It was an incredible opportunity to be offered a site like this so I just got my head down and just went for it. Then after walking the land a few times I realised that I had no parameters I had to work around like hills or rocky outcrops. And being flat meant that I could route the holes wherever I liked and in the end that turned out to a real bonus because right from the beginning, it was important to build an understated golf course rather than going completely over the top.

You say you wanted to build an ‘understated’ golf course. What does that mean?

Exactly what it sounds like. It was never my intention to create something false and manufactured. It had to be in keeping with the surroundings but above all, I wanted to build a golf course like they used to build – something that would stand the test of time.

What sort of golf course is a ‘DJ Russell golf course?’

I see myself as a very ‘hands-on’ designer. Today most new golf courses use a ‘signature’ golfer who generally does not have that much input other than lending his name to the project. Compared with great golf architects of the past like Harry Colt, Alister MacKenzie and Donald Ross, who were on site much of the time the course was being built, how much input into the final design can these people really have? For me, the main advantage of being on site while both courses were being built was that I could influence so much. For example, if the shape and angle of a particular green didn’t work I could change it without too much trouble. Often something will look good on paper but didn’t work in reality and going back to what I said about the old course designers, it was ‘hands-on’ course design in the purest sense. That said, I think the results speak for themselves. As for a typical ‘DJ Russell course’ I am very happy to put my name to both courses at Archerfield Links.

Most people are presented with 18 holes to design – you had 36. Was it double the challenge or did it make it easier having a bigger canvas to paint on?

Being my first design, it was probably easier in some respects. I wanted each course to be both enjoyable and playable and because I came into the job without any preconceived ideas, I didn’t automatically think ‘that bit of land would be perfect for the same par-5 hole I designed ten years ago.’ Everything was fresh and I was able to put as much energy, enthusiasm and effort into the last hole I designed at Archerfield Links as the first.

The first course opening here at Archerfield Links is the Fidra. What was the most challenging aspect of designing that course considering much of it was built through mature trees?

Interestingly, it was not the trees that were the problem it was the sand dunes on the links section of the course. As we took out hundreds of trees, the course already had a mature look about it but those areas bordering the more exposed part of the Fidra Links took a lot of work making them seem natural and not forced. Especially as the area between nearby Muirfield and the sea has a fantastic range of sand dunes.

So how do you make a parkland-style course played through trees play like a true links?

That’s really down to the type of grasses we use. We planted fescue grass and in the next five years the speed of the fairways and greens will get quicker year on year establishing Archerfield as a fast-running Scottish links.

I notice that you have resisted the temptation to incorporate huge swales in any of your greens. Was this a deliberate policy?

Again, modern golf course architecture is all about overstatement. Everything is exaggerated but if you look at classic designs like Muirfield, the greens are superbly protected by cleverly placed bunkers and subtle, rather than penalising slopes. What I did was build the greens then disguise any slopes by blending them into the surrounding ground using a gate dragged behind a tractor in exactly the same way as Colt and MacKenzie would have done in the past. The only difference was they used a horse to drag the gate around while we used a tractor! Not exactly hi-tech I know, but it added to the natural feel that we were trying to achieve from the outset.

Was it the same with the bunkering here at Archerfield Links? It appears to me that you decided to go down the less-is-more route rather than having a sea of sand facing the golfer off the tee?

Absolutely right; most of the great links courses are over a century old and in that time they have matured with bunkers being added while others have been taken away. Like everything else in life they evolve over time and I think a lot of new courses ‘bunker-up’ too quickly in the hope they will offer a tough challenge to the golfer while the course is still new. I don’t think we have that problem here at Archerfield Links. My philosophy is that golf holes should not only be playable but enjoyable. Then as the course matures over the next decade we will gradually add more and more but only when the time is right. There are bunkers out there and the course is challenging enough but I resisted the temptation to make the course impossible to play from the outset.

That said, I noticed that some of the fairway bunkers are extremely penal costing the golfer one-stroke, if not even more. Was this also a deliberate decision?

Definitely. I feel if you are going to build a bunker to gather up an errant tee-shot, then it should always cost you a shot.

In keeping with you classic golf course design thinking, I believe that the greens and tees are to be hand-cut by mowers at an added annual cost of £150,000. Surely this cannot be true,

Certainly it is. It was always my intention to get the greens up to a really fast speed which you never quite achieve cutting the greens with a modern-day triple-mower. Twelve months before the British Open, the R&A demand that each green on the host course is hand-cut to bring them up to the required speed and consistency. Now if triple mowers produce as good a putting surface as hand mowers how can this be so? Obviously it’s a lot more work for our green keeping staff but we decided from the beginning that was going to be our policy and we have stuck to it.

There is quite a contrast between the two courses - with the Dirleton far more links in style than the Fidra.

The style of each course was really dictated by the sub-soil we had to work with. For example, there is an area on the Dirleton that resembled a farmer’s field. Compared with the sandy terrain on the Fidra, it was heavy but very rich soil and we were forced to add a lot of sand to obtain the links-feel we were trying to achieve. But like everything else it’s a gradual growing-in process.

There are rumours that Archerfield Links might hold a European Tour event here or possibly be a qualifying venue when then British Open returns to nearby Muirfield. Assuming that would be a composite of the two courses, would you see it more as a links-type course or a mixture of parkland, trees and links?

Any composite course would be designed to show off Archerfield at its best so it would be a mixture of links and trees. It was never my intention to build a monstrously long golf course and the beauty of having 36 holes here is that it offers a number of routings - all of which produce a challenging golf course no matter who plays it. We currently have four loops of nine, which centre on the clubhouse. Using holes from all four-nines, the composite adds up to a championship-length golf course around the 7400-yard mark. If we needed a slightly shorter course – perhaps for a ladies event - we have plenty of tee options to bring that yardage down without compromising either quality or level of difficulty. For me, that is the beauty of the layout here at Archerfield.

What do you see the future of Archerfield Links and would you like to do more course design?

It has been a very positive experience and one I would love to repeat. Like I said, I want to uphold the ethics of the early great designers and try to work very closely with the project. It’s just not me to take the money put my name to it then supervise the closing stages. I like to be very hands-on and that means getting involved with everything from the very start of the project to its completion, which is what I have done here at Archerfield Links. That way I can build a golf course that is both playable and enjoyable which is what we have achieved here. And unlike some courses where it looks like they have plonked a bit of America in the middle of Scotland, I am positive both of my courses will stand the test of time.