THE ROCKSTARS IN CUSTOM GOLF TOURS

WHY PLAY?

SUMMARY

As we have all recently been reminded.  Life can be too short.  If you are a golfer and still have St Andrews Old Course on your bucket list.  Now is the time more than ever to plan your pilgrimage to Scotland and St Andrews the Home of Golf.  If you have not yet played the Old Course exercise your rights and follow the footsteps of the legends on golf’s most sacred links.  Afterall there is a reason the Old Course has remained Public.

If you want to golf in Scotland and play the best courses then you really can’t book soon enough.  Guaranteed Tee Times at The Old Course are already extremely limited in 2021 as the 2020 reservations were all moved to 2021.  However, always remember that 50% of the Old Courses’ Tee Times are balloted on a daily basis so every golfer still has a great opportunity to get a great tee time.  Rockstar Golf takes care of the ballot process for our guests and we build in some extra flexibility to maximise your opportunity to follow in the footsteps of golf’s legends and Royalty.

St Andrews is the mecca of Golf and you can expect your time there to be almost religious.  Expect to meet golfers from all over the world all there for the same reason.  Their passion for the game of golf.  You will feel the amazing energy of the town as soon as your drive into St Andrews.

It is important to manage your expectations of what kind of experience to expect when you play the Old Course as Some golfers can leave disappointed.  The Old Course is certainly fascinating and in wonderful condition but it is not the greatest most stunning golf course you will ever play.  The experience is more about the personal connection you will make with the most historic course in golf and as you walk in the footsteps of greatness and play a course shaped by the elements over the centuries.  This is golf’s birthplace.  The experience is more spiritual than physical.

Bernard Darwin and Tom Doak said the following about the Old Course :

Bernard Darwin in his 1910 book, The Golf Courses of the British Isles  “There are those who do not like the golf at St Andrew’s,”

‘The St Andrews Old course itself usually isn’t an instant hit, it’s a golf course you have to get to know and love. First-timers might be somewhat disappointed. It’s also unlikely that the Old course will feel familiar when you play it for the first time (except perhaps the 1st, 17th, and 18th). Television pictures tend to make the ground look very flat, but the humps, hollows, and ripples in the fairways are much deeper when you get out onto the course, as indeed are the pot bunkers. Dr. Alister MacKenzie wrote in his book, <i>The Spirit of St Andrews</i>: “A good golf course is like good music or anything else: it is not necessarily a course which appeals the first time one plays over it; but one which grows on a player the<a Tom Doak’s Little Red Book of Golf Course Architecture the author goes a long way towards explaining why the Old course isn’t an
instant hit:

Renowned Golf Architect Tom Doak said this about the Old Course

“The Old Course would never receive the acclaim it has today if we hadn’t been told for eons how great it is. It is the great golf
course that most players tend to dismiss as overrated after their first round – of course, that has something to do with its fame too. But it seems to me that the two reasons for it are simple: 1) most tourists don’t get to see the most interesting hole locations, which are reserved for important events,  and 2) golfers can’t make out the strategies of the holes because the features are so difficult to see.

However, it goes without saying that every golfer should play this course at least once, preferably multiple times. It sends shivers down the spine when the starter announces your name, setting those first tee nerves jangling. Oozing familiarity with names like the Swilcan Burn, the bridge over the burn—thought to have been built by the Romans—and the Valley of Sin. There are many memorable holes on the Old Course, but one in particular, the 17th, the Road hole, is probably the most famous hole in the world.

And a word about the greens: they are the most extraordinary and interesting putting surfaces in the world. There is the little definition between where the fairway, fringe, and green stops or starts, and the fairways are probably faster and certainly more undulating than the average golf club’s greens. And the size of them is absolutely staggering—they are gigantic—occupying more than an acre in some cases. When you are on the green, forget about having the pin tended—take a pair of binoculars instead.

Mother Nature was largely the architect of the Old Course, but some credit must be given to Allan Robertson. In 1848, he widened fairways, created the now-famous gigantic double greens, and built the infamous Road Hole green. Robertson’s protégé, Old Tom Morris, also made further revisions to the Old course down the years.  If I could be certain that everyone was intimately acquainted with the Old Course at St Andrew’s,” wrote Tom Simpson, “my task, in saying what constitutes a good golf course would be a very simple one. I should just say St Andrews and leave it at that’.

So, let Rockstar get you in the ballot and plan the ultimate bucket list golf trip to Scotland. You will definitely remember the Old course experience for the rest of your life.