StackaLine offers a hole-by-hole guide for the Old Course at St. Andrews in Scotland.
The Old Course at St. Andrews – host of 2023 Walker Cup in Scotland – wasn’t originally designed so much as it evolved in the early 15th century. Architectural contributions were made hundreds of years later by Daw Anderson in the 1850s and Old Tom Morris a few decades after that.
Known as the Home of Golf, the Old Course ranks No. 2 on Golfweek’s Best 2023 list of classic courses in the United Kingdom and Ireland built before 1960.
The Old Course will be stretched to 7,313 yards with a par of 72 for the 49th Walker Cup, the biennial match between amateurs from the United States versus amateurs from the United Kingdom and Ireland. The length of each hole for the Walker Cup is noted in the captions below.
The teams will play four foursomes matches Saturday morning, eight singles matches Saturday afternoon, four foursomes matches Sunday morning and 10 singles matches Sunday afternoon. (Foursomes is often called alternate-shot in the U.S., and each two-man side will play one ball, alternating shots until the ball is holed.)
The Walker Cup will be broadcast on Golf Channel in the U.S. at 8:30 a.m.-2 p.m. EDT on Saturday, then 8 a.m.-2 p.m. EDT Sunday.
Thanks to yardage books provided by StrackaLine – the maker of detailed yardage books for thousands of courses around the world – we can see exactly the challenges the players face this week.
From the Scottish Highlands around to St. Andrews, a series of true links astonish with variety, playability and charm.
Where to begin?
That is not a rhetorical question. When laying out a bucket-list golf trip to Scotland, it’s a very serious query, part of a series of such questions that will follow you around the country. Where to begin? Which course next? Toughest of all: Which courses can I bear to skip?
Headed to St. Andrews? There’s a lot more on tap than the famed Old Course, 30 times the site of the British Open – ahem, Open Championship, thank you very much. Will you play the New Course, which seems a misnomer, seeing how it was built by Old Tom Morris in 1895? How about the Jubilee? The Castle, which having opened outside town in 2008 is the newest of the seven courses managed by the St. Andrews Links Trust? Maybe sample a handful of the other layouts not far from the Home of Golf?
Headed into the Highlands for a dream round at Royal Dornoch? Everyone on other courses, on the way and on social media will tell you that you can’t skip nearby Brora (I didn’t) or Tain or Golspie (I missed both, but I already am planning to return). Scouting a classic links trip to Aberdeen? You can’t miss classic links such as Royal Aberdeen, or Murcar Links or Cruden Bay or a handful of others. The options are lined up along the coast. All the coasts of Scotland, actually.
Cabot Highlands, formerly known as Castle Stuart, in Scotland (Jason Lusk/Golfweek)
Headed east? You’ll be told not to miss the courses to the west. Looking north? Don’t miss those gems to the south. Whichever point of the compass you choose and whatever address you plug into Google Maps, there will be dozens of opportunity costs – all those suggestions are correct, even if they create a totally unmanageable itinerary for a traveling golfer on a weeklong holiday.
Weeks after my recent trip, when playing with a group of Golfweek’s Best course raters in California, I barely could finish a sentence about where I played before the questions poured in: Did you play this one, and what about that one? We all process the world through the lenses of our own experiences, and that’s especially true when judging the courses somebody else is, or is not, playing.
The 18th green of the Old Course at St. Andrews sits close enough to the street and town that the afternoon shadows of old buildings stretch across the putting surface. (Jason Lusk/Golfweek)
Such was the quandary when I started planning this trip to Scotland. I was lucky, because I knew where I would begin. American course designer Tom Doak is building a new course at Castle Stuart near Inverness, which is being rebranded as Cabot Highlands after its recent acquisition by Canadian company Cabot. I would begin there to hear Doak discuss his plans as well as to sample the original course at the resort.
But from there? I had options. Too many options. The names of famous Scottish links courses roll on and on, and it would take months to see even half of what I had in mind. I had only 12 days on the ground, so I enlisted the help of course booking provider Golfbreaks and the local experts at VisitScotland.com to help set up a trip that would venture high into the Highlands before swinging back down the coast, east to Aberdeen and eventually into St. Andrews.
Scotland, of course, is where the game as we know it was invented, and the best of it is all about links golf in particular. Firm, fast and sometimes almost entirely natural – I coveted the links experience. Of the 550 or so total golf courses in Scotland, fewer than 90 might be classified as true links, depending on one’s given definition – there is great debate among academics and clubhouse drunks about what constitutes a proper links. On this trip I was lucky enough to experience 11 examples. Each was distinctive, and don’t dare think of links golf as some uniform game, because it is the definitive opposite of that. The conditions might be similar, but each layout shines on its own, each bouncy shot promising something unexpected.
Street view in St. Andrews (Jason Lusk/Golfweek)
I played courses that are famed worldwide, and several that are less known outside Scotland. I played in sunshine and rain, wind and calm. I played well, and I played poorly. The only constants were the courses, the terrain and coastlines flashing through my exhausted head each night in whatever accommodations I had scheduled. The trip included planes, trains, buses, shuttles and a blue Skoda SUV – “Keep left, keep left, keep left,” I had to remind myself at the start of each drive on skinny, winding roads, because I couldn’t bear the thought of missing my next round of golf due to something so mundane as a car crash.
There were a lot of miles, a lot of different beds, a lot of nerves in the car. So many good courses, too many bad swings. And it was all perfect.
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The traditional links courses find spots of honor on this ranking of the best classic courses in Great Britain and Ireland.
Welcome to Golfweek’s Best 2023 rankings of the Top 50 classic courses in Great Britain and Ireland – built before 1960 – as determined by Golfweek’s Best raters.
The members of our course-ratings panel continually evaluate courses and rate them based on our 10 criteria. They also file a single, overall rating on each course. Those overall ratings on each course are averaged to produce a final rating for each course. Then each layout is ranked against others in Great Britain and Ireland to produce the final rankings.
Our travel writer has played 79 golf courses so far in 2022. Here’s what stood out.
I have one of the best jobs in the world, but don’t tell my boss that I acknowledged such. Truth is, plenty of people would line up to do this travel job for free. Play golf around the world and write about it – just about a perfect gig.
There are some downsides. The 3 a.m. wakeup calls, the flight delays, the time away from family, the late nights staring at the keyboard, not to mention all the bogeys. But these are niggles, easily dismissed.
I played 79 golf courses so far in 2022, and I am likely to add at least one or two more before the calendar flips. There were affordable munis, high-end private clubs and plenty of top-dollar resorts. I see the full spectrum of golf in my travels, from dirt fairways to perfect putting surfaces. They all were among the 250-plus stories I filed in 2022, and I remember just about every shot from each round – my wife calls this ability to recall and fret about shots I struck months ago a major character flaw.
With the year wrapping up soon, it’s time to take a look back at several of my favorite experiences of 2022. I played from California to Scotland, and some days, courses and golf holes just stood out.
Did Tiger Woods miss an epic chance to say goodbye to competitive golf?
Did Tiger Woods miss an epic chance to say goodbye to competitive golf?
Colin Montgomerie seems to think so.
After making the cut in the first two majors of 2022, Woods took the U.S. Open off to make sure he was ready for St. Andrews and the 150th playing of the Open Championship.
Woods won two of his 15 majors at the Old Course and provided golf fans with one of the major subplots in the final major of the year.
Montgomerie certainly wasn’t alone in his thoughts that perhaps there’d be no better place for Woods to say farewell. Speaking on the Bunkered podcast, Montgomerie said:
“That was the time. Stand on that bridge, start waving, and everyone goes, ‘So, is that it?’ Yeah, it is. It would have been a glorious way to go. The stands were full, the world’s TV cameras—from all continents—were on him, he’s walking up there on his own, tears were in his eyes obviously You can’t beat that walk. I’ve done it myself. When the stands are full, you cannot beat that walk.”
Montgomerie also said he doesn’t see Woods winning any more tournaments.
“I can’t see that happening. I’d love it to happen because it’s great for the game. I would love him to win. But I just can’t see it happening.”
Woods did return to semi-competition at The Match, playing alongside Rory McIlroy. He’ll team up with his son Charlie at the 2022 PNC Championship.
“The goal is to play just the major championships and maybe one or two more. That’s it,” he said. “Physically, that’s all I can do. I told you that, guys, you know, the beginning of this year, too. I mean, I don’t have much left in this leg, so gear up for the biggest ones and hopefully, you know, lightning catches in a bottle and I’m up there in contention with a chance to win and hopefully I remember how to do that.”
It was a hell of a day for it but, with the kind of gritty resolve usually reserved for the likes of the Ancient Mariner, we completed round two of a sodden, wind-ravaged Alfred Dunhill Links Championship. Within minutes of play finishing, the sun came out. Bloomin’ typical eh?
“It got to a point where it wasn’t even golf,” gasped Robert MacIntyre after a wild buffeting at Kingsbarns that was broadly equivalent to being perched in the crow’s nest of a galleon during a tempest. He may have been drookit and dishevelled but the dogged MacIntyre had emerged unscathed.
While Englishman Richard Mansell clambered to the top of the leaderboard on 10-under after a tenacious 4-under 68 over the Old Course, MacIntyre’s battling 2-under 70 a few miles down the East Neuk hoisted the Scot up 35 places into a share of fifth on 6-under.
Padraig Harrington of Ireland looks on from the 15th tee holding an umbrella in the rain during the second round of the 2022 Alfred Dunhill Links Championship at Kingsbarns Golf Links in Kingsbarns, Scotland. (Photo: Jan Kruger/Getty Images)
During a rancid day, it became so wet, even the laptops of the golf writers just about had moss growing between the keys. Toss in the violent gusts and it was all about clinging on grimly and limiting the damage.
Some fared better than others. Romain Langasque, who led overnight after a record-equaling 61 over the Old Course, came a cropper at formidable Carnoustie with an 80. And spare a thought for poor old Alexander Knappe, whose first four holes in a shotgun start from the 14th of the Old Course produced a five, a six, a nine and an eight. The German eventually signed for a torrid 88.
Even Shane Lowry, the recently crowned BMW PGA champion, found the going tough and toiled to a 79 at Kingsbarns to languish down on 5 over. Other star attractions like Matt Fitzpatrick and Rory McIlroy sit on 2 under and 1 under respectively.
As for MacIntyre? Well, the in-form Oban man harnessed the appalling conditions to fine effect and bolstered his push for a second victory in three events. The 26-year-old, fresh from his fine success in the Italian Open recently, offset three bogeys with a haul of five, hard-earned birdies to lurk four off the halfway pace with two circuits of the Old Course to come.
Despite the rotten weather, MacIntyre relished the challenge.
Robert MacIntyre of Scotland looks on after playing a shot during the second round of the 2022 Alfred Dunhill Links Championship at Kingsbarns Golf Links in Kingsbarns, Scotland. (Photo: Jan Kruger/Getty Images)
“I’m soaked through, I’ve got water in my shoes but I just had to laugh all the way,” said MacIntyre, who got through three towels and 12 gloves. “It’s the way I play my best golf, with a smile on my face. But it was brutal. It’s probably the hardest conditions I’ve ever played in.”
It was a day for throwing away the yardage book, knuckling down and relying on those old golfing instincts.
“I didn’t look at the book once and it was just a case of moving it forward and being able to see it,” added MacIntyre, whose best finish in the Dunhill Links remains a share of 26th in 2019. “The 12th was playing like a par 6. I hit it out of position so chipped it with an 8-iron about 120 yards. Then I chipped a 5-iron about 140 yards and then hit a 9-iron into the green. I just played it like a par-6. It was just about keeping the ball in play, keeping it out the sky and certain winds and just dealing with what you’ve got. I just want to have a chance on the back nine on Sunday. That’s what determines if it is a good week or a mediocre week; having a chance. Top-10s are alright, but back-door top-10s aren’t what we want. We want to be fighting for wins.”
Mansell, who is seeking his maiden win on the DP World Tour, winkled out five birdies and spilled just one shot in a defiant 4-under round which left the 27-year-old two shots clear of Sweden’s former Scottish Open champion, Alex Noren.
“I can’t feel anything in my body right now,” chittered Mansell as he emerged for a post-round analysis. “It was just gritty and about personality; just trying to stay positive and focused.”
Noren, a 10-time champion on the DP World Tour, added a 69 for his 8-under tally while Denmark’s Niklas Norgaard Moller and Antoine Rozner share third on 7 under.
“I’ve played in wind and rain many times but nothing like this,” said Norgaard Moller after a 74 on the Old Course. “On 12, I was hitting a full driver and it flew 170 metres right into the wind. What can you do but laugh?”
If you’re traveling internationally and looking to get in a round abroad, you may want to consider a rental set.
You thought the British Open ending the men’s major championship season was a bummer? Wait until you see this.
Domestic travel is bad enough these days in the United States with severely understaffed airlines leading to frequent flight delays, cancellations and of course, lost luggage. On the international scale it’s even worse, and one picture showed just how backed up high-traffic airports can be.
Just days after Cameron Smith won the British Open in epic fashion at the Old Course at St. Andrews, a pile of golf bags currently sits in the Edinburgh Airport, which is just 50 miles from the Home of Golf.
There’s a comfort that comes with playing with your own clubs, but if you’re traveling internationally this year and looking to get a round or two in abroad, you may want to consider a rental set.
A group of friends bet on the Warriors to win the NBA title. That was only the first part of the plan.
Some people bet on sports for fun. Others do it with the hope to hit big and get rich. For a few, it’s simply a lifestyle. Then, there are those who use betting as a utility, a means to an end — a way to potentially multiply their money to afford something else.
That was the goal of a group of buddies in Minnesota who decided last year they wanted to make a bucket-list trip to the Old Course in Scotland for the 150th Open Championship, as told by Golf.com. Expenses were going to be more than their typical annual buddies trips, so they turned to NBA futures for extra money.
The bet: Golden State Warriors to win the NBA championship.
Andrew Beliveau, a die-hard Warriors fan, was the member of the group who convinced the others to go all-in on the team’s 10-1 odds ahead of last season. They put even more money on the Warriors midway through the season at 6-1 once it was clear they would contend. In all, Beliveau said, the group had around $5,000 on the line.
His confidence was rewarded (and the trip secured) when Golden State claimed the title last month. The roughly $30,000 payout was more than enough to fund their trip to St Andrews. They even secured an $18,000 AirBnB across the street from the 18th green. And, of course, they sprinkled a little something on the golf.
Their biggest bet — on Rory McIlroy — would’ve helped fund their next trip to an Ole Miss football game in the fall, but fell flat on Sunday. But they did at least they did have a little action on winner Cameron Smith.
Going from St. Andrews to The Grove is just another in a series of fantastic decisions from this group.
Well, so much for everyone who blindly tossed a few units on Tiger Woods at the 150th Open Championship this weekend.
The Old Course at St. Andrews just totally ate up the GOAT, beginning with his first drive off the tee at No. 1 on Thursday, which landed in a divot and saw him start the round with a double bogey.
Woods officially missed the cut on Friday after finishing 9-over par. His final walk down the 18th fairway was an exceptionally emotional scene for Woods and his fans.
It was less emotional for oddsmakers, who had tremendous liability on Woods this weekend.
Tigers Woods to make the cut at #TheOpen was a popular bet for the public this week (-150 at @BetMGM).
Per @johnewing, 84% of bets and 93% of the money at BetMGM was on Tiger to make the cut.
He shoots +9 through two rounds and misses the cut.
Although I am disappointed to be heading home, I had an incredible week at St Andrews celebrating 150 years of history and the game we love. I want to thank this place for all the memories it has given me, and to the fans today for having the walk up 18 be added to that list. pic.twitter.com/VHD93MfeSl
Over at Tipico Sportsbook, 10 percent of bets were on Tiger to win (+7000), but 71 percent of bets placed had him missing the cut.
A rough week in Scotland for Woods was expected, as much as bettors wanted to believe otherwise.
Here’s hoping Tiger still has better days ahead of him.
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It meant a lot to Tiger Woods to be able to play in the 150th Open Championship this week.
Still hobbled from that near-fatal car accident more than a year ago, Woods even skipped the U.S. Open last month to give his body enough time to recover from previous events and allow him to play.
Fans at St Andrews showed their appreciation with a huge applause as Woods wrapped his second round below the cut line, which caused him to get emotional. He admitted afterwards that the tears came from knowing it could very well be his last British Open at the Old Course — where he won two of his three British Open titles.
“I've been lucky enough to have been doing this since 1995, and I don’t know if I'll be lucky enough to play another British open here at St. Andrews … the warmth and ovation on 18, it got to me.” pic.twitter.com/Qg6Sg2evod
Despite his physical limitations, fans gave Woods a good chance to win this event because of how great he’s been in his career. So even as he doubts his own future, we will no doubt hold out hope that the G.O.A.T. has a few more of these left in him.
