Scotland Trip - "Other" St. Andrews Courses

NR13 · May 5

Planning a golf trip to St. Andrews and curious about the feasibility of playing the "other" St. Andrews courses (jubilee, castle, new course) without booking tee times in advance.

Two of us plan to be there for 5 days and play 5 rounds of golf.

Plan is to enter the Old Course ballot for each day. We understand that it is typically not an issue to reschedule rounds at other courses should we win the lottery, but it is not possible to cancel the other rounds all together and get a refund - we only want to pay for 5 rounds total. Basically wondering if the two of us book 4 rounds of golf in advance and don't end up getting on the Old Course, would it be possible to scramble and get a tee time at one of the other St. Andrews courses (or surrounding courses like Elie or Crail) with only ~2 days notice? Thanks

hammergolf · May 5

Post in the UK and Ireland thread and you’ll get more replies.

For me, I would buy the 3 day unlimited golf ticket from St. Andrews Links. That will give you one guaranteed tee time a day on the New, Jubilee, Castle, and Eden courses but TOC. For me if I’m going to list the best golf courses in a 20 minute circle from St. Andrews it would be this:

1 Kingbarns Basically the Pebble Beach of Fife. Great course but it’s pricey.

2 TOC

3 The New

4 The Jubilee

5 The Castle

Next courses within 45 mins

Carnoustie

Dumbarnie

Lundin

Crail Balcomie

Elie

Levin

NR13 · May 6

Got it, thanks

Santiago Golf · May 11

Kingsbarn

Caril

Gullen

Cullen

Castle Stuart

North Berwick

Royal Aberdeen

slideguy · May 14

Hammerhead nailed it but I’d play Dumbarnie over Kingsbarnes.

tw422 · May 14

Other than nice views the The Castle course is not worth playing - hated the green structures. Agree with all of the other posts though. Kingsbarnes and Carnoustie are def worth playing. I really liked the New and Jubilee Courses at St Andrews.

dcmidnight · May 22

I will get run out of town for this but from a pure golfing standpoint - I enjoyed Carnoustie more than TOC. And yes its like trying to rank two 5 star restaurants, but to me, I cant wait to get another crack at Carnousite.