By Gordon Berry

A BUSINESSMAN who lets out a house in St Andrews has been refused one of the sought-after town resident tickets that give cheap access to the St Andrews Links golf courses.

The decision is sure to lead to great interest among many absentee landlords and people who own property but are seldom in town, and who might be tempted to play the system in the hunt for cheap sport at the home of golf.

The decision has been made by St Andrews Links Trust, which discovered that although the un-named applicant owned property in the town, he did not qualify.

An investigation was carried out into his application, and minutes of a recent meeting of the trustees make it clear the issue went right to the top of the trust.

At one point the application was being treated as possibly fraudulent, and the man was even “interviewed” personally by general manager Alan McGregor.

It is stated that the house owned by the applicant is registered as a house in multiple occupancy, and when he was interviewed he confirmed that he only spent about two months a year living in the town.

The trustees were asked to determine whether the application met criteria set down in the 1974 Links Confirmation Act, and in particular whether he was a “St Andrews resident” for that purpose.

It is pointed out that after “careful consideration” it had been decided that the application should be rejected on the grounds that the man could not be deemed to be a resi- dent.

The trustees also agreed that a record of the case, and all similar ones, should be kept in a decisions book to be held by the trust’s general manager.

Yesterday a trust spokesperson said that anomalies in the application system tend to “jump out” and that there is close monitoring of people wishing to obtain tickets.

He said there had only been a small number of similar cases in the past and that it can be difficult to carry out full investigations.

“The trust does everything it can to make sure that the rights of local golfers are protected,” he said.

It is clear that massive savings could be made by anyone who did manage to slip past the scrutiny of the Links Trust.

At the moment the price of a resident’s season ticket, which covers all six courses, is £125, which is exactly the same amount that would be charged for a visitor playing just one round over the Old Course.