The Old Course is the oldest, and one of the most well-known golf courses in the world. It sits just off the West Sands Beach, where the beach meets the city of St. Andrews. The Royal & Ancient Golf Club is located adjacent.

The Old Course at St Andrews, also known as the Old Lady or the Grand Old Lady, is considered the oldest golf course. It is a public course over common land in St Andrews, Fife, Scotland and is held in trust by the St Andrews Links Trust under an act of Parliament. The Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews clubhouse sits adjacent to the first tee, although it is but one of many clubs (St Andrews Golf Club, The New Golf Club, St Regulus Ladies Golf Club and The St Rule Club are the others with clubhouses) that have playing privileges on the course, along with some other non-clubhouse owning clubs and the general public. Originally known as the “golfing grounds” of St Andrews, it was not until the New Course was opened in 1895 that it became known as the Old Course.

Source: Old Course at St Andrews on Wikipedia

While the land is basically flat, it is a continuous ribbon of crumpled linksland that hides much of itself from view. Many rounds are required until the player knows what is out there on every tee and, therefore, where to go and where not to go. It is only with this knowledge that the player appreciates the tremendous amount of strategy involved in playing the Old Course.

After a few holes, the overall strategy becomes apparent: Drive left (where there’s all the room in the world) and face an awkward approach or drive right (typically between gorse or out of bounds on the right and bunkers on the left) and have a simpler approach. At St. Andrews, hitting the fairways and greens does not count for a lot — one could hit every fairway and green in regulation and still not score better than 80.

Source: Golf Club Atlas

There are a number of stone markers sitting in the middle of a few fairways – namely the 4th, 5th and 7th holes. They were in fact the boundary (or march) markers that defined the edges of the land that was purchased in 1821. The markers have a ‘G’ on the golf course side which was much narrower at the time. Old Tom Morris widened the golf course considerably meaning those markers now lie in the middle of the fairway.

Source: Aussie Golfer

_{^{Course Logo: By www.standrews.com, Fair use
Course Image: By Gordon Hatton, CC BY-SA 2.0}}