Andy Murray might have missed out on a knighthood in the New Year Honours List – but the Scot has splashed out around £2million on a hotel fit for a king.
He was one of three bidders for the 14-bedroom Cromlix House Hotel which was the venue for the wedding of his brother Jamie and his Colombian girlfriend Alejandra Gutierrez in 2010.The four-star hotel, which closed in February, sits in 36 acres of landscaped grounds within a 2,000-acre estate and includes four fishing lochs and two mineral springs.’He knows the place well. Anybody who is anybody in Dunblane goes to Cromlix House for their wedding, anniversary or birthday,’ a source close to the property was reported to have said.
‘Nobody knows what he intends to do with the hotel. It is only ten minutes by helicopter from Gleneagles, which could prove useful during the 2014 Ryder Cup.’On the other hand, it could be that Andy will restore it as a private house so that he has a luxury base in Scotland to come back to.’Meanwhile, Murray has admitted he must add to his trophy
collection before he can start dreaming of being called ‘Sir Andy’.The Scot, who won the US Open and Olympic titles last year, was awarded an OBE and expects to wait some time before following in the footsteps of countrymen Alex Ferguson and Chris Hoy.
‘You need to do a lot for a long time to deserve an honour like that,’ he said. ‘I’ve only been doing it for a couple of years so I’ll definitely need to win a few more matches and have more tournaments to have a chance of getting that.‘With the people around you, everyone just kind of stays the same (after a knighthood) – it’ll be people that you don’t know that will come up to you and address you as that,” he said. “But I wouldn’t want my friends and family to call me like that.’Murray is currently preparing to defend his title at the Brisbane International also admitted he is glad to have finally broken his Grand Slam duck.
‘I’ve had a lot of congratulations because a lot of people that were sort of general sports fans kind of knew my story a little bit of how long it had been since any British player had won a Slam and how many times I had lost in the finals,’ he added.‘It was very nice for me to finally be able to move on and not worry about that stuff anymore. ‘I got a few upgrades on flights and things like that, which is nice, but that’s died down a little bit over the last few months.’Murray also believes the experiences of last year will propel him to future successes.
‘I always prepared to give myself the best chance to win the event,’ he said. ‘The last few years I’d got close but never managed to get over the final hurdle.‘So whether it was a mental thing, whether it was things in my game I needed to improve, physical things… who knows exactly?‘But now that I’ve managed to do it, I hope that when I’m in those situations again I’ll deal with them better and put less pressure on myself, which will help me play better.’
