Drew Harwell, Times Staff Writer
Friday, January 21, 2011
DUNEDIN — For decades, this city's little par-3 golf course off Bayshore Boulevard has been known by one name: St. Andrews Links.
Nobody ever seemed to mind it. The name, a tribute to the world's oldest golf course by the same name in eastern Scotland, fit the city's tartan heritage. A local Presbyterian church and bagpipe band took the name, too.
Then last month came a big surprise. The city faced a devastatingly expensive lawsuit coming from afar: the owners of St. Andrews Links in Scotland.
Business leaders of the 15th-century course, classically regarded as the "home of golf," were readying for a multimillion-dollar merchandising assault on the American market. That meant securing their trademark — by any means necessary.
St. Andrews hired Washington, D.C.'s Nixon Peabody LLP, one of the largest law firms in the world, to ...