COURSE · LINKS · OPEN ROTA · BUCKET LIST · TIER S
St Andrews, Fife, United Kingdom · The Home of Golf
Six centuries of golfers, sheep, and sea wind have shaped a links that invented almost every convention the game still observes — eighteen holes, the out-and-back routing, the very idea of strategy.
01 · Overview
~2 min read
The Old Course is the oldest playing field in golf, a stretch of common land beside the North Sea where the game settled into its modern shape. It is owned by the people of St Andrews, managed by the Links Trust, and closed on Sundays so the town can walk its dogs across the fairways. Nothing else in the sport is quite like it.
Almost none of it was designed in any conventional sense. The routing emerged from sheep tracks and rabbit scrapes; Allan Robertson widened the corridors in the 1840s and cut two holes on each green to ease congestion, which is how the famous double greens — seven of them, vast and tilting — came to be. Old Tom Morris built the present first and eighteenth in the 1860s and rebuilt the greens until they drained. The course has been edited, never authored, and that distinction is the whole of its character.
What plays here is the ground game. The turf is firm fescue laid over sand, the wind off the Eden estuary changes every few holes, and the fairways are wide enough to invite a dozen different lines into each green. The challenge is choosing the right one. Pot bunkers — Hell, Strath, the Road bunker, the Principal's Nose — are placed exactly where a confident shot wants to finish, and most are deep enough that escape is sideways at best.
The course is hardest on the second nine, and hardest of all at the seventeenth, where the tee shot crosses the Old Course Hotel's outbuildings and the green is squeezed between a deep bunker and a public road that remains in play. It has hosted thirty Opens since 1873 and will host the 156th in 2027. Tiger Woods won here in 2000 without touching a single bunker over four rounds, which is roughly the standard the place sets.
THE TURF
Firm fescue over sand, mown tight and running. The ball is meant to travel after it lands; aerial golf rarely holds and almost never wins.
THE GREENS
Vast shared putting surfaces — some nearly an acre — connect the outward and inward holes. Three-putting from sixty yards is a routine indignity.
THE BUNKERS
Over a hundred pot bunkers, many invisible from the tee. Walls revetted with stacked turf; most demand a wedge played sideways or backwards.
THE WIND
The routing runs to the Eden estuary and home again, so the wind that helped on the outward nine is rarely the wind on the way in.
02 · The Holes
6 of 6 · tap any hole to watch creators play it
Six holes carry more of the course's weight than the other twelve combined — and the creator vlogs that prove it.
HOLE 17 · par 4 · 495y
A blind tee shot over the corner of the Old Course Hotel sets a line that must hug, but not cross, the right edge. The green sits at an angle, defended in front-left by the Road Bunker — small, deep, and capable of ending tournaments — and behind by the paved road itself, in play and unforgiving.
495 yards · Often called the hardest par-4 in championship golf.
HOLE 1 · par 4 · 376y
The widest fairway in championship golf — shared with the eighteenth, 129 yards across — and yet the opening tee shot is the most nerve-wracked in the game, played beneath the windows of the R&A clubhouse. The Swilcan Burn waits in front of the green and turns a routine wedge into an awkward question.
376 yards
HOLE 14 · par 5 · 618y
The Beardies lurk down the left of the tee shot; the second must be threaded past Hell Bunker, a 300-square-yard pit deep enough to lose a player in. The reward for surviving both is the Elysian Fields — a rare flat shelf of fairway — and a manageable pitch.
618 yards
HOLE 11 · par 3 · 174y
A short par-3 that plays toward the Eden estuary, with the Strath bunker dug straight into the front of a steeply tilted green and the Hill bunker waiting left. The green falls away from anything long. Bobby Jones tore up his card here in 1921 after failing to escape the sand.
174 yards
HOLE 18 · par 4 · 357y
A short par-4 home, the most photographed walk in golf. Driver carries the Swilcan Bridge corridor and leaves a wedge into a green guarded by the Valley of Sin — a deep grass hollow that swallows anything pitched short. The R&A clubhouse frames the approach.
357 yards
HOLE 16 · par 4 · 423y
The fairway is split by the Principal's Nose — three pot bunkers in the middle — forcing a choice between a narrow strip right, flirting with the out-of-bounds wall, or the safer but longer left side that leaves an awkward angle in. Strategy in miniature.
423 yards
06 · How to Play Here
7 routes to a tee time
Old Course Daily Ballot · ballot
A daily lottery for groups of 2-4 golfers, drawn 48 hours in advance of the day of play (except Sundays/Tournament days). Entries must be submitted by 2pm two days prior.
Singles Daily Draw · single
The digital replacement for the walk-up queue. Solo golfers must register in person at the Old Pavilion or Links Clubhouse between 9am and 5pm the day before play to enter a random drawing for any open slots.
Private Advanced Tee Time (Swilcan Package) · package
A direct application process held annually in early September for the following year's season. Successful applicants receive a guaranteed Old Course time paired with one other St Andrews Links course.
Authorised Provider Packages · external
Guaranteed tee times sold by official tour operators (e.g., PerryGolf, Haversham & Baker) usually bundled into multi-day itineraries with lodging and other courses.
Old Course Hotel Packages · hotel package
The Old Course Hotel (Kohler-owned) and certain other local hotels have a small allocation of guaranteed times for guests booking specific golf packages.
Winter Package · package
Guaranteed Old Course round when booking a three-course package during the low season (Nov-Mar). Usually requires playing from fairway mats.
Links Ticket Holder Priority · members only
Residents of St Andrews and North East Fife with a 'Links Ticket' (annual pass) have dedicated priority booking windows and significantly reduced rates.
07 · History
30 Open Championship · since 1873
1552
Archbishop John Hamilton formally granted the people of St Andrews the right to play golf and other games on the links — the document that anchors the course's claim to be the home of the game.
1754
Twenty-two noblemen and professors founded the society that would, in time, become the Royal and Ancient Golf Club — golf's governing body for most of the world.
1764
The course was reduced from twenty-two holes to eighteen when the society combined the shortest holes at each end. The number became the global standard for the game.
1848
Greenkeeper Allan Robertson cleared gorse to broaden the corridors, turning a narrow penal course into a strategic one with multiple lines of play.
1856
Robertson cut two holes on each green to manage congestion, flagged white for the outward and red for the inward nine. The signature double-green system was born.
1873
The Open Championship arrived at the Old Course for the first time. Local golfer Tom Kidd took the title and became the first winner of the Claret Jug.
1930
Jones won the British Amateur here as the first leg of his single-year sweep of the four majors — the pre-Masters Grand Slam, never repeated.
2000
Tiger Woods won the 129th Open by eight strokes without finding a single bunker over seventy-two holes — a strategic performance that has not been matched.
08 · Common Questions
7 questions · sourced from 3 vlogs
Most visitors enter the daily ballot, a lottery drawn 48 hours in advance for groups of two to four. Solo golfers enter a separate singles draw the day before play. Guaranteed times exist through the annual advance application (early September for the following year), through Old Course Hotel golf packages, and through authorised tour operators who bundle the round into a multi-day trip.
Yes. The course closes every Sunday and becomes a public park — locals walk the fairways, picnic on the double greens, and take photographs on the Swilcan Bridge. The only exceptions are major championships, when Sunday play is permitted.
Yes. The Links Trust requires a handicap of 36 or better for men and 36 or better for women, and you must present a current handicap certificate at check-in. Without one, you will not be allowed on the first tee.
The Old Course is walking-only — no buggies except by medical exemption. Caddies are not mandatory but are strongly recommended; the bunkering and approach angles are nearly impossible to read on a first visit, and a caddie will save you several shots and a great deal of confusion.
The 156th Open Championship returns to the Old Course in 2027. The course has hosted the Open thirty times since 1873, more than any other venue on the rota.
The Old is the headline, but the New Course (1895) is widely regarded as a fine links in its own right, and the Jubilee plays the firmest and longest. The Castle Course, set on cliffs south of town, is the dramatic outlier. A typical visit combines the Old with one or two of the others.
The Old Course Hotel sits along the seventeenth and includes golf packages with guaranteed times. Rusacks overlooks the first and eighteenth from the town side, and the Dunvegan Hotel is the famous golfers' pub with rooms above. All three are within walking distance of the first tee.
10 · The Library
3 creators · YouTube-indexed
Most relevant
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Save it to your studio, share it with the group, or — if the ballot gods favour you — book it for next season.