When the earth moved

Arnold Palmer took a walk in the Kildare countryside, close by the River Liffey, and visualised a major golf development which would one day be capable of playing host to the Ryder Cup. Two years later, he was present for the official opening of The K Club, on July 15th 1991. And by way of acknowledging its 10th anniversary, he will be back there later this month.

Much has happened since those early, embryonic days when the appetite of potential patrons was whetted by talk of 20 acres of streams and man-made lakes and of extensive woodland in a generous, 180-acre site. Indeed when I met Palmer a year before the launch, he promised "a top-quality test in delightful surroundings." Aware of a similar development which his great rival, Jack Nicklaus, was involved in at Mount Juliet at that time, he added with a wry smile: "It seems that Jack and I will always be rivals. First we had it on the regular tour, then in golf-course architecture and now on the Seniors' Tour. He's a hard man to shake off."

Indeed they were still trying to shake each other off as recently as last March. That was when Palmer made light of an age difference of more than 10 years by beating the Bear at the World Golf Village in Florida, in a special challenge match for the Shell Wonderful World of Golf series.

Meanwhile, when the official opening was still more than a year away, The Kildare Golf and Country Club had already made a formal application to stage the Ryder Cup in 1993. Which prompted Palmer to remark: "I would like to think that if the Ryder Cup passes it by, it would be considered for other important events, such as the Irish Open." The K Club has yet to stage the Irish Open, and the 1993 Ryder Cup passed it by. But there have been wonderful compensations. Like the fact that it is this week staging the Smurfit European Open for a seventh time; and that in 2005 it will be home to the greatest prize of all, the Ryder Cup.

According to my colleague Frank McDonald, no house in Ireland has been refurbished more often nor at such lavish expense as the on-site hotel. Built by the Bordeaux Bartons, it dates from the mid-19th century and was owned in recent decades by Irish-American film producer Kevin McClory; Nadar Djahandani, an Iranian air-force general executed by the Khomeini regime in 1979 for "destroying national sports institutions;" Patrick Gallagher, the property developer later jailed for fraud in Northern Ireland and Alan Ferguson, a British mining millionaire who spend even more on it before selling at a loss in 1988 to the Jefferson Smurfit Group.

By the time of its official opening, the development had cost £28million sterling. Since then, an additional £4 million has been spent on enlarging the clubhouse; the hotel was virtually doubled in size by Easter of this year at a cost of £13 million and £2 million was spent on upgrading the golf-course.

This makes a grand total of £47 million - and considerable, further expenditure in the pipeline. Like the new, so-called South Course, which is being built at a projected cost of £8 million; stage one of a clubhouse extension starting next October, which will increase the snack-bar and the professional shop four-fold. Next year, stage two of the same project will involve the installation of an additional 300 members' lockers and a conference facility for 200, out towards the ninth green.

Among other things, the development has been criticised as a stomping ground for the nouveau riche. More accurately, however, it is the realisation of one man's dream. And Michael Smurfit had the courage to confront, publicly, major drainage problems on the golf course with the assurance that things would be put right.

The problems were highlighted by an ill-judged staging of the Smurfit Irish Professional Championship in May 1992. And as Ray Carroll, chief executive of The K Club conceded, there was no point in blaming the weather.

With television and newspaper photographs becoming the chief witnesses for the prosecution, no defence counsel would allow a client to enter a plea so fatuously improbable, given the overall cost of the venture.

"It was obviously a mistake which provided our critics with considerable ammunition," he said. "They could claim to have been proven right: the venture was an unmitigated folly, just as they had predicted." Carroll went on: "Of course it hurt us. But it also strengthened our resolve to rectify matters. We were made to realise that simply throwing money at something wasn't going to guarantee the desired product. It wasn't show-business. Painstaking, hard work had to be put into getting things right."

Then the shadow of a smile flickered across his face as if he were remembering some private joke.

"Hotels and golf courses are only as good as your last breakfast or your last round," he mused. "The picture changes every day."

In this context, it is revealing to note that the Palmer organisation have also been given the contract for the new course, on the far side of the Liffey from the 16th, 17th, seventh and eighth holes, as the course plays this week. While highlighting the loyalty of Dr Smurfit, the decision copper-fastened a sound working relationship extending over 13 years. Sure, there were difficulties. But nobody fell out: there were no lawsuits.

The continued success of the remedial work spearheaded by greens superintendent Gerry Byrne and director of golf Paul Crowe, was very much in evidence on Saturday, June 23rd. With all the cars, tentage and general buzz about the place, one would have thought something very important was happening, though the Smurfit European Open was almost two weeks away.

From the male members' standpoint, something decidedly important was, indeed, happening.

This was captain's (Michael Kenny) day and the course, especially the greens, had never looked better.

Meanwhile, the hotel staff have become accustomed by now to the increased space, from 36 to 69 rooms, achieved with the same, seamless attention to detail which characterised the original extension of Straffan House. And looking towards the Ryder Cup, Carroll expressed special pride at its continued status as the only Irish hotel with five red star status, which has been retained by, among other things, having a staff/guest ratio of three to one.

And he has determined that this elite status will not be maintained at the cost of the traditional warmth and hospitality, for which this country is famous as a tourist destination. The sort of warmth which has attracted such luminaries as Tiger Woods and Mark O'Meara as regular guests.

The point is illustrated by a story which Carroll tells about the arrival of a celebrated industrialist. By way of preamble, there were phone calls, faxes and e-mails from various executives in his operation, requesting the ultimate in VIP treatment. Carroll understood their thinking, though his personal preference would be for a quiet, understated welcome.

In the event, he agreed to greet him personally, after the visitor had come in from a round of golf. It was mid-afternoon when, standing in the hotel lobby, Carroll extended the hand of friendship. Then, pleasantries completed, the industlialist turned to Sean Duffy, one of the porters, and remarked: "You were dead right, Sean. I should have hit the three iron on the fifth." For Carroll, the entire exercise is more about people than bricks and mortar. "A wonderful thing about the hospitality industry is that the rich and famous can walk in and out of an hotel, meet a porter or room maid and get on first-name terms with them," he said. "And by way of illustrating a basic need for human contact, they will treat them as equals.

"Putting it crudely, money can build the product but it takes culture to deliver the desired ambience. And we place a huge emphasis on culture."

The Smurfit European Open, which had its first staging in the wake of Europe's Ryder Cup triumph at Oak Hill in September 1995, raised the profile of the resort significantly. Its importance lay in the fact that from the birth of the facility, golf was to be the main focus: the hotel was incidental, being developed purely to have a small number of rooms for overseas visitors.

It is now established as a highly profitable operation, because of the membership income and the property sales.

This would have been impossible for a small hotel and a golf clubhouse on a stand-alone basis, but as part of a resort, the various elements work very much to the benefit of guests.

There is a charming story told of Palmer and the time when, as a five-year-old, he would position himself near the tee at the sixth hole of his home course, Latrobe CC, on women's day.

Standing there, with a plastic six-shooter holstered to his hip, he would point to the drainage ditch 120 yards away and offer to hit the women's drives over it for a nickel (10 cents). He had already learned that everything had its price.

So it is at The K Club. On a previously flat landscape enriched by mature trees, more than one million tonnes of earth was moved to accommodate the plan of Palmer's chief designer, Ed Seay. Some trees were cut and many more were planted in a determined quest for a worthy product. Yet all of this work claimed only a fraction of the overall cost.

Despite these considerations, the artist felt that Michael Smurfit should still be able to manage a smile while indicating his requirements to the great man, in a painting which dominates the left wall of the clubhouse lobby.

And by the way, it is said that before the clubhouse was built, a scaffolded platform was erected with a chair on top, so that Dr Smurfit could make a final decision regarding the proposed building's relationship to the 18th green.

Naturally, like those who were prepared to employ Palmer's precocious talent, he was acutely aware that his golfing vision would have its price.

And though it may have taken rather longer than he anticipated, he can now take justifiable pride in the evidence of money well spent - albeit on a somewhat grander scale than the nickels paid by the grateful women golfers of Latrobe.