Beyond the Old Course: The St Andrews Golf You Are Probably Missing

Table of Contents

1. The Elephant on the First Tee
2. The New Course: Do Not Let the Name Fool You
3. The Jubilee: The Locals' Favourite
4. The Castle Course: Views Worth the Green Fee Alone
5. The Dukes: The Inland Surprise
6. Strathtyrum: The Nine-Holer That Steals Hearts
7. The Real St Andrews Experience
8. FAQs

The Elephant on the First Tee

Let us get this out of the way early. The Old Course at St Andrews is the most famous golf course on the planet. It deserves every ounce of that reputation. The shared fairways and greens, the blind shots, the Swilcan Bridge, the Valley of Sin, that walk up the 18th with the town watching. It is a pilgrimage, and if you get the chance, you take it. Golf has been played here since at least 1552, when the local Archbishop John Hamilton granted the townspeople the right to play on the links. That is nearly five centuries of continuous golf on the same piece of ground, and it shows in every undulation and every blade of grass.

But here is what happens to a lot of visiting golfers. They spend months obsessing over the Old Course ballot. They plan their entire trip around it. They play it, take the photographs, buy the golf sweater at Auchterlonies, and fly home having barely scratched the surface of what St Andrews actually has to offer. The Old Course is not the only game in town. It is not even the only game on the same stretch of links land.

The New Course: Do Not Let the Name Fool You

The New Course was laid out in 1895, which makes it "new" in the same way that your grandparents' house is "new" compared to a medieval castle. It shares the same turf, the same firm running fairways, and the same coastal wind as the Old Course, because it occupies the same piece of ground. Where the Old Course loops out and back in a single line, the New wraps around it.

What you get is a proper, honest links test without the theatre that comes with playing the most famous course in golf. The greens run just as true. The bunkering is every bit as strategic. And there is a noticeable lack of the four-hour queue on the first tee that you sometimes encounter next door. In recent years, a slight Americanisation has crept in. You can now buy a transfusion at the halfway house, a vodka and grape juice cocktail that is wildly popular with visiting American golfers and will either sharpen your focus or finish you off entirely for the back nine. Either way, the pies remain excellent, and that is really what matters.

The perfect day on the Jubilee

The Jubilee: The Locals' Favourite

If you ask a St Andrews local which of the Links Trust courses they play most often, the answer is frequently the Jubilee. Originally laid out in 1897 to celebrate Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee, it has been reworked and lengthened over the years into a genuinely demanding links that, on a breezy day, will test every club in your bag.

It sits on the seaward side of the links, which means it catches more wind than the Old or New courses. The rough can be punishing, the fairways are tighter than you expect, and the green complexes have real teeth to them. It is, in many ways, the most complete test of links golf in St Andrews. The fact that you can walk off the 18th, stroll into the town centre and be sitting in a pub within ten minutes is a bonus that golfers who travel halfway across the world to play the Old Course often overlook entirely. Tour operators who bring groups to St Andrews year after year, and the Jubilee is consistently the course their clients single out as the most satisfying round of the trip. Not the Old Course, not Kingsbarns. The Jubilee. There is something about its honesty and its refusal to rely on reputation that golfers respond to instinctively.

The Castle Course: Views Worth the Green Fee Alone

Perched on the cliffs above St Andrews Bay, the Castle Course occupies a completely different piece of landscape to the rest of the Links Trust portfolio. Opened in 2008 and designed by David McLay Kidd, it is the newest of the St Andrews courses and the most visually dramatic.

The clifftop setting gives you panoramic views of the town, the coastline, and the North Sea that are genuinely breathtaking. On a clear day, the spires of St Andrews frame the backdrop to your round in a way that no photograph quite captures. The halfway house is not really a halfway house at all. It is a hatch built into the side of the main clubhouse, which you pass on the way from the front nine to the back. Grab what you need and keep moving. It is not trying to be a destination, just a quick refuel, and that suits the pace of the course well.

The Castle Course divides opinion amongst golfers. Some find the elevation changes and exposed greens frustrating in the wind (pack a light weight g.Kyle jacket or Sunderland s.Whisperdry). That is precisely what makes it interesting. It demands a different type of links golf to anything else in St Andrews, more aerial, more aggressive off the tee, and it rewards the golfer who embraces the challenge rather than fighting it.

g.KYLE

$160

s.WHISPERDRY STEALTH

$288

The Dukes: The Inland Surprise

Most golfers do not associate St Andrews with inland golf, but the Dukes, now part of the Links Trust, offers exactly that. Set amongst mature woodland on the hill above the town, it is a long, well-maintained parkland course with sweeping views down over St Andrews and the coastline beyond.

It plays quite differently to anything else in the area. The turf is softer, the ball does not run as far, and you need to carry it through the air to find the greens. For golfers who have spent three days on firm, fast links and are craving a change of pace, the Dukes is a welcome contrast. It is also significantly easier to get a tee time than the Old or New courses, which makes it a smart option for those booking at shorter notice. Do not sleep on it.

Strathtyrum: The Nine-Holer That Steals Hearts

Here is an observation that surprises almost every visiting golfer who hears it. Tour operators who send groups to St Andrews for a week, playing the Old Course, Castle Course, Kingsbarns and Carnoustie, will often ask their clients to rank their experiences at the end of the trip. Strathtyrum, a modest nine-hole course with nothing flashy about it, routinely appears in the top two or three.

There is no logical explanation for this, but I think I understand it. After four or five days of championship golf, high green fees and the pressure of playing courses you have read about for years, a relaxed nine holes with good views and no pretension is exactly what the soul needs. It is fun. That is the word people keep coming back to. Just pure, simple, uncomplicated fun. Some decent short holes, lovely views across the Firth of Forth, and the quiet satisfaction of a game played for the sheer joy of it.

The Old with the historic St Andrews town sprawling around

The Real St Andrews Experience

The thing about St Andrews is that it is not one golf course. It is a town built on golf, surrounded by golf, living and breathing golf. You see people walking through the streets with their clubs on their backs, jumping on and off buses, heading out for nine holes before dinner as casually as you might pop to the shop for milk.

The Old Course is the headline, and it always will be. But the real St Andrews experience is playing three or four different courses across a long weekend, each one showing you a different side of links golf.

Book the Old Course ballot. Hope for the best. But do not build your trip around a single round of golf. St Andrews has so much more to offer, and the courses that nobody talks about might just be the ones you remember longest.

g.COLL

$168

g.ESTHER

$160

g.KNOX

$160

g.MAYA

$160

g.MAX

$104

g.MISHA

$104

g.KELSO

$104

g.FERN

$104

s.WHISPERDRY STEALTH

$288

s.WHISPERDRY WHISTLER

$288