With clubs on shoulder, I headed down to the New Course Saturday morning. There are five courses at St Andrews, in addition to the Old Course. The New Course and the Jubilee Course are Links courses, similar to the Old Course. The Eden, Strathtyrum and Balgrove (9 hole) Courses are more parkland-type courses, more inland than the others and more similar to American courses. The clubhouse for the New and Jubilee is located near the first tees for those courses, while the other three’s clubhouse was located farther away across the Old Course. The Old Course doesn’t have a club house, just the starter’s shack and the caddy shack. The R&A is not a clubhouse for the Old Course, it is just a clubhouse for a private golf club located by the first tee of the Old Course (and not open to the public).

I signed up for a three day pass to play as much golf as I wanted on the five courses. I started with the New Course, joined some locals in a round and soon began losing balls in the heather. After a frustrating round I then went around the Jubilee with some locals and continued to loses balls. I found it very handy to go out with locals on these tracks since there are a lot of blind shots on these links courses and the locals can give you some good advice on where to aim. They were also able to point out a major flaw in my game and I put away the woods. Once I did that, I found that I wasn’t losing balls in the heather any more. I just wasn’t able to hit the woods straight consistently and I was able to keep the irons in or near the fairway. Also, these courses fairly short (< 7000 yards) and you don’t really need a driver to tee off on most holes. It hadn’t rained in 6 weeks, which is why the fairways were turning brown and everything was very hard and dried-out. The balls really rolled when they landed. On the Jubilee round, I met some locals who invited me to have a drink at the New Club (as opposed to the Royal and Ancient). I gladly accepted, left my clubs at the clubhouse, and they drove me over the New Club, opposite the 18th fairway of the Old Course. As was explained, the golf clubs, like the New and R&A, are member organizations and not tied to a specific course. The clubs organize competitions and maintain handicaps, but don’t manage any courses. The golf courses at St Andrews are owned by the St Andrews Links Trust. The trust runs the clubhouses, provide the food services and maintain the grounds. I played the New Course on Sunday and continued the iron strategy and enjoyed much success. I only lost 2 balls and those were on some serious mis-hits that went Out-of-Bounds. On Sunday, I also discovered the Old Course is closed. It’s tradition. And that the public is welcome to walk through the track, so I did, taking a short break from the golfing grind. I went through taking pictures, seeing some legendary holes, and wondering if, and when, I would feel ready to tackle it. I also found the other three courses, over by the 12th-16th holes. Monday, I came back and played more rounds on the New and Jubilee Courses. I scored in the low 100’s. I thought I was ready for the Old Course. I intentionally came to St. Andrews a week after the British Open, figuring the crowds would be gone and things wouldn’t be so congested. And I was right. But, the detritus of the Open was all around the course and not going away quickly. The stands, the scoreboards, the TV towers, the Hospitality tents. Unfortunately, the driving range was under a very large hospitality tent and there was no other place to practice your shots. For the Open, they had the pros using the Jubilee’s 1st and 18th fairways as a driving range. Oh well. It would have been nice to practice some more shots.