If Napoleon Bonaparte was right and “history is only a fable we are agreed upon,” then despite the protestations of the Dutch — often vociferous in their claim that their own game of kolven on frozen canals predates the game of the links, or even the Chinese who have asserted that golf has a specifically Oriental tinge to its beginnings far from the cry of the Scottish North Sea coast — the vast majority of us remain content to believe that St Andrews is the legitimate Home of Golf.
After all this is where the game has been played for more than six centuries and where it wears its historic and cultural pedigree like a headmaster’s gown. When St Andrews speaks the golfing world listens, and when things change in the Home of Golf, the world is obliged to take note.
So, the announcement earlier this year by the St Andrews Links Trust that the Old Course — so long content in her role as the most famous golf course in the world and matriarch of the seven courses at St Andrews — was to welcome a new addition to the family came as a bit of a shock.
Eyebrows were raised, heads suddenly bobbed and turned and in polite circles, whispers were heard behind guarded hands. After nearly 20 years of stable family life since the last arrival, the old dowager was bringing forth a new addition.
Not since 2008, when the Trust commissioned David McLay Kidd to design and build the Castle Course — the seventh course in St Andrews and the first new 18-hole golf course built in St Andrews for more than a century — has there been such an upheaval in the old town’s family.
The Castle arrived not without some controversy. It was not a traditional links course like the others within the city boundary but a clifftop layout a few miles outside town, offering wonderful views but roller-coaster greens and quirky patches of rough in the fairways that became known as ‘Don Kings,’ neither of which were to everyone’s taste then nor since. It was built with the express purpose of trying to ease congestion on the town’s traditional links courses.
And that’s the same reason that has been advanced for the Trust’s acquisition of The Duke’s Course — formerly a privately owned course under the umbrella of the Kohler organization’s Old Course Hotel but now rebranded under the name of the Craigtoun Course — now under a long-term lease agreement with the hotel.
The primary driver for the acquisition, said then-chief executive of the Trust, Neil Coulson, was part of a long-term strategy to increase capacity and improve access for both ticket holders and international visitors. Increased growth in golf participation had accelerated the need, it was argued, with the existing seven courses, the Old Course being the premier attraction, struggling to accommodate the increased visitor demand, particularly during the peak summer months.
And it is true. St Andrews in recent years has seen an unprecedented pressure on tee times with close to 300,000 rounds played across the Trust’s courses annually. It is hoped the additional course will ease some of that pressure, although whether the appeal of what is a fine inland/heathland course will have the allure of traditional links golf for which St Andrews is famous will have to be seen. But at least it will offer the Trust more options and visitors a marked contrast.
The original Duke’s Course was designed by five-time Open Champion Peter Thomson, a lifetime devotee of St Andrews who had a long association with the town. He was an honorary member of the Royal & Ancient Golf Club, an Open Champion on the Old Course, and spent many happy summers in St Andrews with his wife Mary.
Thomson was given an inland, partly heathland site a few miles to the west of St Andrews on the Craigtoun Estate to build what became The Duke’s Course back in 1995. It enjoyed wonderful views from its high elevation above the town, but it was not a particularly friendly site to work. In the years since it has had several makeovers, most notably by architect Tim Liddy who made major changes in 2006.
But there is little doubt that the element that has raised most eyebrows and sent tongues wagging in the auld grey toon has been the change of name from the “Duke’s Course” to the “Craigtoun Course.”
It was officially opened in 1995 by the then-Prince Andrew, Duke of York, and formally named The Duke’s to celebrate the occasion. Officially the new name has no connection to the fall from grace of the now-Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor following the revelations about his friendship with the notorious Jeffrey Epstein.
The new name, says the Trust, reflects the course’s location near Craigtoun Country Park and aligns with the Trust’s tradition of naming courses after local geography such as the Eden, the Strathtyrum, and Balgove.
Well of course it does.
