IT was built next to one of Scotland’s most prestigious courses and intended to rival the illustrious Ryder Cup venue as a playground for the rich and famous.

Right next to Gleneagles lies gWest. Or, as it’s otherwise known, the “great enigma” of Scottish golf.

Plans for a new championship golf course on the land next to the historic Gleneagles Hotel resort were first unveiled in 2007.

The course itself was completed and all ready for play two years later.

Yet, to this day it has NEVER opened to the public.

It now effectively lies abandoned, with golf fans describing it as a “ghost course”.

Why the facility remains unopened to this day revolves around a backdrop of financial uncertainty, political upheaval and a secretive owner who once appointed himself the richest man in the world.

The journey of gWest from pipe dream to Scottish golf’s own Schrodinger’s Cat actually begins in the 1970s and the story is set in the quaint, unassuming village of Blackford in Perthshire which sits adjacent to the Gleneagles estate.

Blackford is known chiefly for one thing: the home of Highland Spring, the UK’s leading bottled water company.

The owner? Mahdi Al Tajir. The self-described “richest man in the world” in the seventies.

Al Tajir, originally from the United Arab Emirates, was a businessman who made his money during the oil boom in the Middle East.

In 2013 he was labelled the richest man in Scotland with an estimated net worth of £1.65BILLION.

Back in the seventies when he became the first UAE ambassador to the UK, he spent some of his many millions acquiring expensive properties, including the Sheraton Park Tower Hotel in London and Mereworth Castle in Kent.

As part of that personal portfolio expansion was Keir House in Perthshire and the extensive 15,000-acre estate that comes with it, purchased for £2million in 1975 (approximately £21m in today’s money).

Four years later Al Tajir came up with the idea to bottle Scotland’s famously exquisite water and turn it into a brand, establishing Highland Spring’s headquarters in Blackford.

He subsequently bought up the land in the surrounding Ochil Hills area but for 30 years he sat on it before the light bulb for golf went off.

Blackford is barely three miles from Gleneagles and its five-star hotel and trio of championship golf courses.

In between was what gWest course designer David McLay-Kidd described as “without question, the best inland site I’ve ever seen for a golf course.”

High praise coming from someone who had just finished the Castle Course in the mecca that is St Andrews and famed for designing the highly-acclaimed Bandon Dunes in the USA.

The grand plans for gWest (which would be re-named Gleneagles West once work was completed) included 170 ultra-exclusive homes with a going rate starting at £500,000 and rising to £3m, a six-star hotel and 18 holes as good as anywhere in Scotland.

With the complex sitting right next to Gleneagles, the hotel would have to be something shout about.

Well how’s this for a list of what would be on offer: a spa, casual and fine dining, high end shops, tennis, squash, a gym, a swimming pool, jogging trails, a shooting school and game fishing services.

Oh, and 180 lavish bedrooms.

For those who loved the area and experience so much, they could design their own luxury home, set within the 620 acre resort.

The first roadblock to all of this was the 2008 financial crisis and the consequent rescission. Undeterred, the Al Tajir family and McLay-Kidd pressed on with the construction of the course and it was completed in 2009.

The clubhouse would take a few more years but was ready by 2013. Locals observe that it looks like a mosque but in fact the building was based Mereworth Castle, owned by Al Tajir and designed by Scottish architect Colen Campbell.

With the Ryder Cup being held by Gleneagles 2014, the decision was taking to start selling the expensive property lots and the company struck a deal with the Gleneagles Hotel for it to host its own guests in one of its neighbour’s plush suites.

The hope was they could generate interest among the mega-wealthy with a view to them owning their own private home at gWest.

Ahead of the tournament, 64 of Scotland’s most prominent business people were invited to play the course.

According to bunkered the feedback was “glowing”. The hype around the layout was real. But while the carrot was dangling, no-one was biting.

One of the reason’s given at the time was the independence referendum, leaving overseas investors seemingly cautious about putting their cash into any further developments with Scotland’s future up in the air.

The same can be said for the future of gWest.

Since then there’s been Brexit and Covid, hardly fertile ground for an extravagant, multi-million pound super-project.

The website for the resort (which is still functioning without a hitch) welcomes you with the catch-line: “Scotland’s best kept secret”.

It’s not wrong.

Indeed, the average golfer – never mind the average punter – has probably never heard of the place, let alone seen it.

If you listen to the whispers, 2013 Open champion Henrik Stenson has tested out the course as have Scots pro golfers David Drysdale and Peter Whiteford.

Anyone else? Depends who you ask or believe. It’s thought the Al Tajir family’s close friends are the only others to have set foot on the course other than the odd lucky golfer espousing the “it’s not what you know, it’s who you know” motto.

According to locals, intimidating security guards do their utmost to deter the public from accessing the site, bulls are often placed in certain fields to act as further obstruction and previously well-known rights of way are blocked.

One enthusiast, Gavin Hughes, said: “I walked a few holes late one night back in April and was then followed all the way back to Auchterarder by a dark Land Rover with tinted windows.”

Another insider recalled that when they visited the site earlier this year with their drone, they noticed someone was cutting the greens with a mower.

The facility actually advertised for a green keeper last year, with the job coming with a pay packet of between £23,000 and £25,000.

The Scottish Sun visited the site and captured rarely seen glimpses of the site showing that the course does indeed look like it could open tomorrow – and immediately be one of the finest 18 holes in Scotland.

The eye-catching clubhouse still stands out from the air and the routing of the course is clearly visible.

Green complexes and undulations can be seen easily and it’s clear to spot features such as bunkers, tee boxes and the lining of the fairways.

None of the planned development of luxury bespoke houses has come to fruition, for now.

While from the air the course looks like the finished article, on closer inspection it is a bit rough around the edges and would require a trim before it was in tip top condition.

Moreover, work needs to be carried out on the clubhouse, with parts of the exterior fenced off, including what would be the steps leading up the building itself.

Looking through the huge windows would suggest the interior also seems to be unfurnished at the moment.

Golfer Paul Connor knew someone who had played the course before.

He took a look at the place recently and doesn’t believe it’s ready for play at present.

Paul told the Scottish Sun: “The course is partly maintained. The greens aren’t in playing condition. I took a look in recently.

“I knew someone who played it, years ago. It’s cut but not to playing standards.”

Today the website still states: “gWest will offer homeowners and their families the opportunity to enjoy an exclusive new residential resort with an 18-hole golf course.”

For many, that would be a dream.

How likely is that dream to come true?

Reading between the lines of the words of the owner’s son, who broke the family’s silence on the project in 2020, the whole thing is up in the air.

Mohsin Al Tajir told The Patch podcast: “The next phase of gWest is another £50, £60, £100m, and as a family we’re not willing to put that sort of money in if we don’t know what the future is.

“If tomorrow Scotland got independence and they decided to turn it into a tax haven like Monaco, we’d be the first there to put the money in. In fact, we’d put three or four courses in and build another two hotels.

“But the way we are today where it looks like taxation is going to go up, the local councils and local villages are going to control everything around them.”

Frustration has clearly set in on that front, with Mohsin even having a pop at the locals over their hostility.

He said: “It’s like they have this thing they don’t like to see successful people. They’d much rather hear that he has gone bankrupt rather than he has made money or become big.

“When we built the extension to Highland Spring, the amount of people that objected … I was feeding your family for past 30 years, why would you object?”

He concluded: “Eventually when the economy picks up in Scotland and we can see what is happening in the future, we will develop it properly.”

So, gWest continues to hide in plain sight.

The question is, will we ever see a golf shot hit on it?

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