The Best Deals In Golf

We all like free stuff (or at least saving money). Our crew gives you some ideas on how to cash in

$330: live in Scotland: This might make anyone who ever paid £130 to play the Old Course sick to their stomach, but residents of the town of St. Andrews, including students of the university, can obtain what's called the Full Resident Yearly Ticket. This little plastic card costs only £165 (about $330) and offers the holder unlimited rounds for a year on all seven St. Andrews Links Trust Courses: the Old, the New, the Jubilee, the Eden, the Strathtyrum, the Balgove and the newly constructed Castle.

$1: get a course designed by Pete Dye: Famed architect Pete Dye has designed at least two courses for the fee of $1: The Kampen Course on the Purdue University campus and Wintonbury Hills in Bloomfield, Conn. Why such generosity when the going rate for a top designer can be $1.5 million? "If there's a chance to build a good course that will be exposed to a lot of people, that's enough for me," Dye says. To build the Kampen Course, he used student labor exclusively, including several students from the agronomy department. Dye taught them to drive bulldozers and excavators and how to build in an environmentally sensitive manner. Might Dye design your course for a buck? "If the situation is right, you bet," he says. "My bride, Alice, says that if all us architects band together and each design five courses for free [or a buck] in our lifetimes, it'll have an impact and make golf less expensive for everybody."

Free: practice for nothing: Golf is the most fun, and the best economic utility, when you play to your potential. Work on your short game at municipal-course practice greens for free. At times when your local park or high school athletic fields are safely empty (and officials are agreeable), take a few balls and a 9-iron and hit back and forth. Gathering your full-swing practice shots encourages landing them in tight groups. Replace divots and be cautious and respectful, and you'll be surprised how golf can coexist with other recreational activities.

$75: solid instruction: America's 50 Greatest teaching pros can charge $200 an hour or more for lessons. Teachers ranked No. 1 in their states by Golf Digest often will work with you for a fraction of that rate. Bill Porter of the Links at Moses Pointe, tops in Washington, charges $75 for a one-hour lesson.

$50: volunteer at the Zurich Classic: Want a front-row seat at a PGA or LPGA tour event? Offer to volunteer. Marshal a hole, walk the course as a scorer, hand out range balls, caddie during the pro-am or work in the merchandise tent. The list of jobs goes on and on, and when your shift ends, wander wherever you wish. You can usually apply on the tournament's official website. In most cases, volunteers need only buy the uniform. The primo gig on the men's tour is the Zurich Classic in New Orleans. For just $50, volunteers get a tournament golf shirt, cap, all-week badge, parking pass, all-week badge for a friend, a meal voucher for on-course concessions and a free round of golf with lunch at the TPC Louisiana. For the women, the LPGA Corning Classic waives the $65 fee if you recruit five or more new volunteers, and there's a free golf outing for volunteers at the tournament course later in the summer. And with most pro tournaments, there's usually a party thrown for the volunteers at the end of the week.

$180: an exclusive day on Nantucket: The waiting list for membership at Sankaty Head Golf Club on Nantucket Island is said to run decades deep, but it's a little known fact (until now) that Joe Q. Public can get on this gem if he plays in the off-season. From October through May, this seaside links opens its doors for a daily fee of $130. Combine that with a $45 ferry ride (or $77 for the high-speed upgrade) and you've got yourself a memorable day at one of America's most beautiful and exclusive courses. The layout includes 270 degrees of the Atlantic Ocean, and the famous 1850 Sankaty Head Lighthouse looms in your backswing. The water is so close that the lighthouse was moved 400 feet in 2007 to save it from erosion.