Where golf for the public began
Golfing England's Royals and St. Andrews
By David G. Molyneaux, editor, The Travel Mavens
Nearly every serious golfer has a goal to play the fabled Old Course in St. Andrews, Scotland.
The Old Course, where local citizens have had the privilege to play for more than 400 years, sits in the middle of the busy medieval city of St. Andrews, on the edge of the North Sea.
The layout looks like a combination of golf course, sheep's pasture and wild backcountry gathering place for socializing, which it is. On Granny Clark's Wynd, a dirt road that runs directly across the 1st and 18th fairways, local folks often stroll as if they own the place, which they do.
To play the Old Course, you can book a tee time through tour operators ahead of your visit or take your chances in St. Andrews on the daily ballot: You play if your name is drawn. If not, you try again the next day.
A spot on the daily ballot of the Old Course opened for me when a man from Chicago was unable to make his trip to Scotland to join three friends who had booked as a foursome.
In gusting winds off the ocean and an occasional light rain, the Old Course played even tougher than it looked -- windswept, with open fields like animal pastures, double greens, hungry bunkers and roughs with gorse, seen in the picture at right, that grabs and hides your ball.
I marveled at how the game has remained the same in Scotland for more than 500 years while it has changed -- gentrified, citified and manicured -- in most other parts of the world.
With my partners, I smiled for all 18 holes, despite errant shots and short putts. I finished with a par after a 12-foot putt and basked in the applause of spectators, who tend to gather near the 18th green at the edge of downtown, left.
Nearly three dozen other courses of note lie within an hour's drive of the Old Course, including the impressive new Castle Course which opened in the summer of 2008.
With enough time and money, you could play golf in St. Andrews at a different course every day for a month. At 4 miles to a course, you could walk 120 miles of rugged golf.
Don't forget to bring sturdy shoes, layers of warm clothes and rain gear, because golf on this side of the Atlantic doesn't stop for inclement weather. So prepare to embrace it.
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