(Photo by David Cannon/Getty Images)
The fourth green at the Old Course.
Dom Furore
Dom Furore
David Cannon
David Cannon
David Cannon
David Cannon
AdShooter
Dom Furore
Tom Shaw/R&A
Dom Furore
David Cannon
David Cannon
David Cannon
St. Andrews Links: Old
St Andrews, Scotland•Public
Awards
St. Andrews Links: Old
W Sands Rd
St Andrews, KY16 9XL
Scotland
Telephone
Overview
The Old Course at St. Andrews is ground zero for all golf architecture. Every course designed since has either been in response to one or more of its features, or in reaction against it. Architects either favor the Old Course's blind shots or detest them, either embrace St. Andrews' enormous greens or consider them a waste of turf. Latest polarizing topic: design changes ahead of the 2015, 2022 and 2027 Opens—adding tees in awkward locations, shifting and restructuring historic bunkers—which many consider blasphemy. The angst is justifiably directed at the changes that compromise the integrity of golf’s greatest blueprint, but perhaps even more so at the sport’s governing bodies that failed to adequately regulate equipment that results in the gross distance gains threatening to make St. Andrews obsolete. After Zach Johnson's dramatic overtime victory in 2015, however, few mentioned the alterations, and the duel of the Cam’s in 2022, with Smith’s Sunday 64 nosing out Young’s 65, both surging ahead of overnight leader Rory McIlroy, put the focus on the race and not the architecture. It remains to be seen how much of a fight the Old Course can put up going forward in the absence of a stern 20 mph wind, but notwithstanding the games of a few thousand global players it remains the world’s most influential and fascinating merger of nature and architecture.
