St. Andrews During Summer Graduation Week

TrueBlue4Lyfe · November 21, 2018

Anyone have experience with this? Accomodations are almost impossible to find. Will it be a mad house? Will it make getting on through the ballot or walking on the Old Course easier, harder, or the same?

raynorfan1 · November 21, 2018

Anyone have experience with this? Accomodations are almost impossible to find. Will it be a mad house? Will it make getting on through the ballot or walking on the Old Course easier, harder, or the same?

Good question.

I have no actual experience, but I would guess that the ballot and walk-up would be somewhat easier than usual. Presumably a lot of the hotel capacity is being soaked up by people who are not playing golf, leaving fewer people trying to get on the links.

Walter · November 22, 2018

Very Interesting topic !!!

I remember a Wrx'er ( forgot the name) who's daughter after a golf trip to St. Andrews decided to go study there ...

Would be great If he would pick up this topic!

I also remember me on a morning pre breakfast session on the St Andrews practice area spotting the logo bags of the st Andrews university team and being a bit jealous in the nicest off ways . Lol

Hawkeye77 · November 22, 2018

We were there during graduation week last summer. Already had times in the lottery, but the town was bustling. Check the busy days (and some days have some open times when busy) on the website to get a sense of how available the course is, seems like there were quite a few at that time of year. With busy days/times and lottery spots assigned, the influx of people would decrease your odds in the ballot. We only found out a couple months out that the nice place we thought was booked for that week since October had been mistakenly double booked by the owner and we ended up staying down the coast because just about everything was long gone in St. Andrews. Was kind of nice to be somewhere quiet, but St. Andrews is a fun place.

Check the website for the dates you are thinking about.

TrueBlue4Lyfe · November 23, 2018

We were there during graduation week last summer. Already had times in the lottery, but the town was bustling. Check the busy days (and some days have some open times when busy) on the website to get a sense of how available the course is, seems like there were quite a few at that time of year. With busy days/times and lottery spots assigned, the influx of people would decrease your odds in the ballot. We only found out a couple months out that the nice place we thought was booked for that week since October had been mistakenly double booked by the owner and we ended up staying down the coast because just about everything was long gone in St. Andrews. Was kind of nice to be somewhere quiet, but St. Andrews is a fun place.

Check the website for the dates you are thinking about.

I have a Old Course tee time I was just thinking about if I wanted to try to play it again, and whether we'd be able to find places to eat at night. There are no busy dates that week.

That is terrifying about your accommodations being double booked. Did the owner help you out in some way? Was it a guesthouse/B&B type place?

Hawkeye77 · November 23, 2018

We were there during graduation week last summer. Already had times in the lottery, but the town was bustling. Check the busy days (and some days have some open times when busy) on the website to get a sense of how available the course is, seems like there were quite a few at that time of year. With busy days/times and lottery spots assigned, the influx of people would decrease your odds in the ballot. We only found out a couple months out that the nice place we thought was booked for that week since October had been mistakenly double booked by the owner and we ended up staying down the coast because just about everything was long gone in St. Andrews. Was kind of nice to be somewhere quiet, but St. Andrews is a fun place.

Check the website for the dates you are thinking about.

I have a Old Course tee time I was just thinking about if I wanted to try to play it again, and whether we'd be able to find places to eat at night. There are no busy dates that week.

That is terrifying about your accommodations being double booked. Did the owner help you out in some way? Was it a guesthouse/B&B type place?

Eating will be no problem, but I'd recommend getting a reservation. The first evening we stopped into St. Andrews on our long trip down from Dornoch to Lower Largo (with two castle tours on the way - and no way I wasn't getting off at the exit and heading straight for the Old Course) we had a tough time getting into some places because of the evening dinner crowds, but no trouble making reservations and having dinner after that. Some of the pubs recommended here off the so-called beaten path would be good choices and you'd find good food and maybe not need a reservation, but you'll eat!

Actually, the owner didn't really help us out at all but there wasn't much he could do. He had sent me an email, which I saw early on a Saturday morning in March (so three months out, my mistake in memory there, I just looked it up) and of course freaked out and spent pretty much all morning and into mid-afternoon running down leads. I did get good support and leads from the person who had recommended the guy that messed up (I emailed him and also called and he tried pretty hard to help). Basically, I woke up, took out the puppy, made coffee, sat down to check email and was initially excited to hear from our host, but that turned to dismay pretty quickly. He had signed up for TripAdvisor (I booked by calling him directly on the telephone and confirming with emails) and apparently didn't pay any attention for five months that his place was spoken for by someone else before he rented it to me, so he decided the only fair way was to go with who had gotten it first, however, they had gotten it, and I really couldn't argue that. He was terribly sorry and I talked with him on the phone and you could tell it really, really bothered him so no point getting upset. And within a few hours we had a nice place booked, but at a much higher price and about thirty minutes out from St. Andrews, but the drive was fine and we saw more than we would have seen staying in town. Still . . . . his flat would have been perfect and was just 1 1/2 blocks from the 1st tee. He did offer to get together (he lives in Edinburgh) while we were in St. Andrews and I would have taken him up on it had we found a place to stay in town, but scheduling didn't allow getting together once we got there. I actually might reach out to him this summer while we are in the North Berwick area, he really did seem like a pretty nice gentleman, just one of those bizarre situations.

TrueBlue4Lyfe · November 24, 2018

We were there during graduation week last summer. Already had times in the lottery, but the town was bustling. Check the busy days (and some days have some open times when busy) on the website to get a sense of how available the course is, seems like there were quite a few at that time of year. With busy days/times and lottery spots assigned, the influx of people would decrease your odds in the ballot. We only found out a couple months out that the nice place we thought was booked for that week since October had been mistakenly double booked by the owner and we ended up staying down the coast because just about everything was long gone in St. Andrews. Was kind of nice to be somewhere quiet, but St. Andrews is a fun place.

Check the website for the dates you are thinking about.

I have a Old Course tee time I was just thinking about if I wanted to try to play it again, and whether we'd be able to find places to eat at night. There are no busy dates that week.

That is terrifying about your accommodations being double booked. Did the owner help you out in some way? Was it a guesthouse/B&B type place?

Eating will be no problem, but I'd recommend getting a reservation. The first evening we stopped into St. Andrews on our long trip down from Dornoch to Lower Largo (with two castle tours on the way - and no way I wasn't getting off at the exit and heading straight for the Old Course) we had a tough time getting into some places because of the evening dinner crowds, but no trouble making reservations and having dinner after that. Some of the pubs recommended here off the so-called beaten path would be good choices and you'd find good food and maybe not need a reservation, but you'll eat!

Actually, the owner didn't really help us out at all but there wasn't much he could do. He had sent me an email, which I saw early on a Saturday morning in March (so three months out, my mistake in memory there, I just looked it up) and of course freaked out and spent pretty much all morning and into mid-afternoon running down leads. I did get good support and leads from the person who had recommended the guy that messed up (I emailed him and also called and he tried pretty hard to help). Basically, I woke up, took out the puppy, made coffee, sat down to check email and was initially excited to hear from our host, but that turned to dismay pretty quickly. He had signed up for TripAdvisor (I booked by calling him directly on the telephone and confirming with emails) and apparently didn't pay any attention for five months that his place was spoken for by someone else before he rented it to me, so he decided the only fair way was to go with who had gotten it first, however, they had gotten it, and I really couldn't argue that. He was terribly sorry and I talked with him on the phone and you could tell it really, really bothered him so no point getting upset. And within a few hours we had a nice place booked, but at a much higher price and about thirty minutes out from St. Andrews, but the drive was fine and we saw more than we would have seen staying in town. Still . . . . his flat would have been perfect and was just 1 1/2 blocks from the 1st tee. He did offer to get together (he lives in Edinburgh) while we were in St. Andrews and I would have taken him up on it had we found a place to stay in town, but scheduling didn't allow getting together once we got there. I actually might reach out to him this summer while we are in the North Berwick area, he really did seem like a pretty nice gentleman, just one of those bizarre situations.

Wow, you handled that much better than I expect I would have. Thank you for the reservation recommendation- I'll definitely do that 1 or 2 of the nights, and go for the off the beaten path pubs the other times.

Hawkeye77 · November 24, 2018

What are you going to do, lol! Who knows, maybe he and I will get together and he'll invite me to play somewhere I can't get on, or know someone who can help me out if I'm there, didn't seem worth burning a bridge and again, you could tell he was really embarrassed by the situation and felt pretty badly.

davepO43 and dcmidnight and some others have some pretty good food/pub suggestions in some other threads, may take some looking, just depends what you are looking for.

We had outstanding food at Little Italy, lunched on waffles at the waffle place (pretty good!), didn't get to eat at Whey Pat and mostly ate away from town since we were staying away, but loads of options you can study and good luck!