Old Course: Uniqueness and the consequences
There is only one Tadj Mahal. There is only one Old Course. What they both have in common is their uniqueness. When history is combined with architectural excellence and myth, it is hard to resist the fascination. Around 4.8 million people visited the Tadj Mahal in 2023. 50,000 rounds of golf were played on the Old Course and 233,000 on the five other courses of the Links Trust at St. Andrews. And this even though Scotland is not a destination for winter golfers, as we all know.
Scene 1: St. Andrews, Bibi’s Coffee, August 2024, a Tuesday
It’s 9.30 am, and the place is buzzing. Eight men from Washington sit at table one; two other tables of four are occupied by other groups of male golfers from the USA. They are all Airbnb users and have come for breakfast. Airbnb lists 318 accommodations for St. Andrews today – a small town with an average population of around 18,000 and an area of between two and three square kilometres. Walking down South Street, you pass front doors that sometimes have up to five door locks for tenants, and the uneasy feeling arises that this historic town centre has a similar problem with renting out accommodation to tourists as Barcelona or other cities plagued by overtourism.
Golf tourism plays a significant role in Scotland. Its economic value has been put at 286 million pounds by Visit Scotland. A golf tourist spends an average of 338 pounds per night. North Americans, who now make up around 30 per cent of all overnight guests, while Europeans only contribute 14 per cent, are particularly welcome guests because they stay 10.21 nights on average. A large proportion of them also come to St. Andrews. Despite a green fee of 295 pounds in the high season, they all want to play the Old Course, and so the first flights of four line up in front of the first tee at sunrise.
The typical US flight, according to local golfers, is easy to recognize: Four players, four caddies, sometimes accompanied by their wives. In other words, a large group yells “Fore” so loudly every time they miss a ball during the round that it can be heard over half the golf course. Later in the afternoon, you will meet some of the Americans on the terrace of the newly refurbished Rusacks Hotel, which, like the Old Course Hotel, has long since become a hotspot for Americans. The food prices there and in many other restaurants in the city centre have reached American standards. So, after a few days on-site, you may well get the idea that St. Andrews has a problem with overtourism.
Scene 2: East Sands, at the weekend
This is also because the city is generally a popular attraction in summer. There is the mighty, wide beach of West Sands and the much smaller one of East Sands. On this day, plenty of families enjoy a sunny summer’s day, and several groups of canoeists also hold a national race here. Later in the evening, some golfers will meet the canoeists as they visit the annual Lammas Market. Children scream, and residents and tourists stroll along Market and Church Street—the history of the fair dates back to the Middle Ages. Somehow, almost everything in St. Andrews is historical and develops enormous appeal.
Finally, there is also the University of St. Andrews, where around 10,000 students were enrolled last year. Together with the Airbnb landlords and the locals, they are all competing for living space. St. Andrews has long been considered the most expensive town in Scotland regarding property prices. The number of for-sale signs outside numerous houses shows that some locals are clearly keen to take advantage of the opportunity to sell their own property at a worthwhile price and live somewhere else for less.
“For younger people like me, it’s impossible to afford property here at some point,” says the young hairdresser in the store opposite Bibi’s Coffee during my haircut. “But it’s still great to be here because it’s so international, the whole world comes here.” Students and academics from the university, summer tourists and golfers. The fact that the traffic in the tiny city centre is chaotic in midsummer is a typical side effect.
Scene 3: The Eden Clubhouse
A starter stands on the first tee of the Eden Course behind the golf academy and reads off the tournament participants.
There will be just under two hundred on this day and another two hundred at his colleague on the New Course to the right. 390 participants have registered for the annual Eden and Strathyrum tournament, and whole families have travelled here. “We all come every year,” says Emily from Houghton-Le Spring. With an entry fee of 150 pounds and a guaranteed minimum of four rounds of golf per person, plus a barbecue and starter gift, the two tournaments are an annual hit. The Brit calls it “good value for money”.
After all, only very few of them are prepared to spend 295 pounds on greenfee for a round of golf on the Old Course. Lucy, standing next to Emily on the first tee for the tournament, usually works as a full-time caddie at the golf course of Dunbarnie. 299 pounds green fee, fully booked by international golfers, as well as Kingsbarns for 418 pounds a round in the high season. However, the Links Trust, which operates six golf courses with the Old Course as the centre, as well as three clubhouses and the Golf Practice Center, is not a commercial golf company, unlike Dunbarnie or Kingsbarns, but a charitable foundation that the British Parliament commissioned to operate the golf courses under the St. Andrews Links Confirmation Act 1974. The economic profit serves only one goal: “The promotion of public participation in sport.”
Golf for all – a real puzzle
The real trick is to make this Taj Mahal of golf accessible and, therefore, affordable for Brits while, at the same time, the whole golfing world craves a tee time on the Old Course. If the figures in the 2023 annual report are to be believed, the feat has been achieved: 151,822 of the total 283,082 rounds of golf in 2023 were played by owners of a so-called Links Trust ticket, which is available for example for St. Andrews residents from just £371 per year. Owners are guaranteed fixed starting time blocks; there is even the chance of Old Course starting times via the ballot system. In the “Home of Golf”, golf is affordable and inclusive for all sections of the population.
Anyone who spends an afternoon at the Golf Practice Center, which generated £1.3 million in revenue in 2023, will see how many different target groups this sport can appeal to. Here, an English elite team trains , while a bus stops with a coffee trip for senior citizens. The elderly ladies try their luck with the little white ball for an hour. The academy boxes are complete, and queuing for a few minutes in front of the boxes is the order of the day. At the moment, the Links Trust is analysing a possible new building.
Creating sustainable golf for the future
Whatever income is generated – £24.4 million in 2023 from golf alone and a net profit of £11.5 million – must also be reinvested. This is part of the foundation’s statutes. The issue of sustainability has long since permeated the work processes and management of the Links Trust. The projects range from producing its own compost to over 90 per cent circular waste management and far-reaching activities in the areas of biodiversity and coastal protection to organizing a bus system that transports golfers from course to course. In 2024, this was recognized with the Scottish Golf Tourism Sustainability Award. The greenkeeping team is faced with the Herculean task of keeping a course like the Old Course, which one or two superintendents these days are already describing as “overplayed”, in as good a condition as possible with a minimum of fertilizer. All this in a climate that is generally described as harsh. However, sustainable care is a credo that accompanies the daily work here.
The curse of flights
However, you will search in vain for a CO2 report from the Links Trust. Despite all the efforts to reduce waste, the switch to electric greenkeeping machines and other projects, the management cannot aim for the net-zero target. It would never be achieved. The number of visitors makes this goal unreachable. For the eight Americans from Washington, the carbon footprint of the Atmosfair calculator shows 40,164 kg of CO2 for the outward and return flight. That’s still 5,200 kg per flight and person, more than three times the CO2 budget that each person is actually entitled to per year according to the IPCC budget. Therefore, in purely climate-related terms, the Old Course’s attraction is more of a curse than a blessing.
Scene 4: The dunes at West Sands
Between the Old Course and the sea lie the dunes, which are the target of violent storms year after year, which are getting stronger due to climate change. Storm Babet shortened the dune fringe by 35 centimetres in October 2023. The Links Trust’s greenkeepers, but above all, countless volunteers, have been working for years to protect the dunes by planting dune grass and other stabilization measures. Ranald Strachan is responsible for dune protection at the Links Trust. You could also say he is the bulwark between the Old Course cash cow and nature. “2,800 people have been involved in coastal protection to date, which is seen here as a project for the whole community,” he explains. “They all understand that we have to protect these dunes.”
Do those golf tourists who are teeing off on the first tee do the same? Probably not. But who could blame them? Those who travel to St. Andrews generally don’t think about the effects of climate change. With the R&A’s iconic clubhouse behind them and the Swilcan Burn in front of the first green in view, the golfer’s nervousness grows, and experiencing something unique creates euphoria. This is where the Old Course works its magic. The complexity of the entire golf system in St. Andrews is hidden.
