This year the 150th British Open golf tournament, a.k.a. 'the Open Championship,' one of golf's major tournaments, will be played at the Old Course at St. Andrews, a.k.a. 'the Home of Golf.' Though we didn't play there, my wife and I have been to St. Andrews and seen the course. With my growing love of golf and my already prevalent love of Scotland this was a must-write post for me.
The Old Course at St. Andrews, or simply 'the Old Course' is considered to be the oldest golf course in the world. I like that Wikipedia leaves off 'in the world' because, really, it's an unnecessary addition to the sentence. This is where golf was invented and probably longer ago than you realized, dating to the early 15th century (1400s!). In 1552 the local Archbishop gave the people the right to play the course, making it a public course, and it remains that way today. In 1754 the Society of St Andrews Golfers was formed, a group that would eventually become the R&A, one of golf's governing bodies and rule-making associations akin to our USGA. This is where golf was first played on 18 holes beginning in 1764, a standard that would last. It's pretty funny to me that it isn't known as the Old Course because its so old, but that they needed a way to differentiate it from 'the New Course' built in 1895. This course really is where it all started, so it's no surprise that the Open Championship plays there every ~five years as part of a rotating schedule in the UK.
The Old Course itself is pretty fascinating beyond everything that developed around it. First and foremost, it's a links course. It had to be, for how old it is. Unlike modern courses that include considerable design, links courses are noted for their utilization of the natural terrain. The Old Course, and some others like it, goes down and back in a single line, much of it pretty straight. #1 is alongside #18, #2 is alongside #17 etc. and there's no real separation between them. Due to the proximity many of the greens are shared, with one hole on the front nine and another on the back nine intersecting at an oversized green with two pins. In fact, only #1, #9, #17 and #18 have their own greens. This layout can actually be played either clockwise, like it was in the past (and now one day a year), or counter-clockwise, as it is today. Historically links courses like this were built along the coastline, where the sandy ground provided an ideal firmness and the ability to grow preferred styles of grass. Water hazards were rather limited, with maybe an occasional thin stream cut across a fairway. And there are essentially no trees, leaving nearly all space as bumpy grassland, some of it short and fast and some of it very long. Added difficulty comes instead from numerous stupidly deep and/or large bunkers. At the Old Course many bunkers are named due to their own illustrious history. Then there's the wind. It can be extremely windy and both the direction and ferocity will change rapidly. This is coastal Scotland after all.
Put it all together and playing the Old Course can be quite a challenge. It's just not the same challenge you may be used to at a course near you. Hitting it low and letting it run is often the best play for many reasons, not least because of the wind. But playing that way presents problems of its own.
Enough about the Old Course for a moment, I want to talk about the town too. About 90 minutes (50 miles) from Edinburgh or two hours (80 miles) from Glasgow, St. Andrews isn't all that far away from the big cities in Scotland. Itself pretty small, the town has a population of about 19,000 residents, and is named, of course, for St. Andrew, one of the apostles and patron saint of Scotland. The town was the center of religion in Scotland for hundreds of years prior to the 16th century Scottish Reformation. There's St. Andrews University as well, one of the most prestigious schools in the UK and the third oldest in the English-speaking world, after Oxford and Cambridge. This is where Prince William and Kate Middleton met in college. It's a relatively interesting place even beyond the golf. But, obviously, that's what brought us there.
We started our day in 2016 in Dufftown, a big whisky producing town to the north. Our route took us through Cairngorms National Park and to Balmoral Castle, summer home of the Queen, on our way south to St. Andrews. I remember coming down out of the mountains and driving through the Scottish countryside when suddenly you hit a golf club and an adorable little coastal town. That's kind of the way it is there. Farms as far as the eye can see, then a town crops up. What made St. Andrews different was you couldn't see it coming from the road and, naturally, the first inkling you've arrived was the intrusion of golf. Our entire trip was packed to the brim, involving a lot of driving, and that day was no exception. In the end we only had some of the afternoon and the evening there. Even without time to golf, it was worth seeing.
After parking and dropping our stuff at the B&B, we got out to explore. We walked along the path down and onto the Old Course, along the right side of #1 and #2 etc. a ways before turning around. If I'd known the course better at the time I might've sought out a specific location or two. I greatly enjoyed seeing the beach where they filmed the famous opening/closing scenes in Chariots of Fire. Then we walked through town, checking out the old stone buildings and ruins, like St. Andrews Cathedral. The shape of the pier really stood out. With the lay of the land, we headed back toward the course and our lodging. We had dinner at the Dunvegan Bar and Restaurant overlooking #1/#18 and chatted with some golfers there, something that felt necessary and was truly a lot of fun. They shared their sticky toffee pudding with us, a Scottish dessert we hadn't tried yet, and we were so glad they did. As the sun was setting I decided I wanted a picture on the Swilcan Bridge, the most famous landmark in town and possibly in golf worldwide. It's always the picture spot on the Old Course and has more than once been where legends choose to say their farewell to the sport. On #18 just after the tee-box, it was also very close to where we were. After a group teed off, and took pictures of their own, I ran out from the road and my wife snapped a couple shots. I tried to emulate Jack Nicklaus and think I did alright.
Afterward we went out for a nightcap. Exploring the whisky bars of Scotland should need no justification. One of our favorites, from two trips over there, was in St. Andrews. I'm pretty sure it was The Keys Bar on Market Street. They had little colored ribbons on every bottle on display, and there were a lot of them, to give you prices on sight. It was the only place that did that and it's genius.
If you get the chance to visit Scotland, this is definitely a great place to visit, golf or no. But yeah, you should probably play there too. I'm looking forward to watching some of the tournament this weekend and feeling some of that sweet sweet nostalgia.
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