Top municipal track to reopen months after Storm Arwen devastation

A top municipal course which was wrecked during Storm Arwen is finally set to reopen.

The Mackenzie Championship course in Aberdeen has been closed since November after high winds felled hundreds of trees.

Such was the damage that a special licence was required by Forestry and Land Scotland to carry out repair works.

• 7 Masters stats you didn’t know

• Catriona Matthew gets honorary doctorate

Bosses at Sport Aberdeen, the body responsible for managing the city’s public sports facilities, had hoped to have it opened “in a matter of weeks” after the storm hit, but faced extensive challenges – including storms Malik and Corrie.

Alistair Robertson, the organisation’s managing director, described the scale of the damage to the course as “unbelievable”.

However, golfers can finally return to the fairways from next weekend after more than four months away.

Designed by Alister Mackenzie, famous for creating Augusta National, the Mackenzie course is one of four municipal tracks in Aberdeen.

• Brooks Koepka in altercation with fan

• Danielle Kang “misses greens on purpose”

It is not the first lengthy closure of the course in recent years.

It was shut between 2018 and 2019 to carry out remedial works after some holes were affected by repeated flooding.