COMMUNITY

The wait...heck that is right around the corner!

You will have a great time. St. Andrews is like walking back in time. I would recommend the following while you are in St. Andrews.

#1 - Take your time to soak in the Old Course. Show up early and walk around the perimeter. First and foremost you never know who you might see. When I was there in 2008 my dad and I ran into Tom Lehman playing the Old Course.

#2 - Go into Old Tom Morris' Golf Shop. The store is just a store now, but Old Tom Morris was Keeper of the Green for around 40 years. His influence on golf is unmeasurable.

#3 - Visit Auchterlonie's Golf Shop - Auchterlonie's is one of the oldest names in St. Andrews and their family made clubs all the way back to the mid-1800's.

#4 - Visit Auchterlonie's Vintage Shop - Its right around the corner from their golf shop...and this place is cool. They have 150 year old clubs, balls and artwork back in this little shop. A great place for seeing some history and buying some if you like.

#5 - The R&A Museum - I could have spent a whole day in there. They cover the history of golf from its genesis until today. They have some really cool historical items and explain the history of St Andrews.

#6 - The Graveyard - You can go to the graveyard and see the graves of Old Tom Morris, Young Tom Morris and Allan Robertson...three of the greatest golfers that ever lived. Their grave stones really give you an idea of how important these men were to St Andrews.

Are you playing anywhere else in Scotland?

You lucky bastard. As Lewis wants to know, I'm also curious if you're playing anywhere else. If you play Carnoustie I might cry a little in jealousy.

We haven't decided yet but I would love to play at least one more course. Thank you for the list of places. I had a couple already scheduled but you have added a few more. I hope I can do a couple of stone rubbings in the Graveyard, some places do not allow it but I will try.

I might play it just to see you cry!!! (jk) There are so many great courses it will be hard to decide if we play another one.

No offense to Co, but I would skip Carnoustie. Its a great course, but I would not call it amazing.

My favorite options depending on where you are traveling in Scotland:

1) If you are in Edinburgh you must visit Leith Links. Its no longer a golf course (its currently a park), but it is the first ever golf course and it is where the first rules on golf were written.

2) If you absolutely love the history of the game I would recommend playing Musselburgh Links in Musselburgh, a suburb of Edinburgh. I could give you a book on the why, but will do my best to summarize.
- #1 its the cheapest course to play that has hosted a major ($35)
- it is the oldest existing course in the world
- it is virtually untouched since the mid-1800's
- it has hosted 6 British Opens
- it was one of the three original Open Championship Rota venues
- It is home to five men who have won the Open Championship including Willie Park Senior (who won 4 including the very first), Mungo Park, David Brown, Bob Ferguson (3-time Open Champion) and Willie Park Jr (two time Open Champion).
- Musselburgh was in fact the center of the golfing world until the mid-1890s.

3) North Berwick - Its never hosted a major but it is a MAJOR course. People call it the Pebble Beach of Scotland you play along the water with some amazing views and there is a wall that runs through the course that was built before Colombus ventured to the Americas.

4) If you are on the West Coast of Scotland skip Troon and play Prestwick. Prestwick hosted the first 12 Open Championships and the course has style and history.

Just some of my thoughts.

Pictured below...and I cannot remember the order in which I clicked are photos from St. Andrews, North Berwick (see the wall and the photo with the flagstick blowing in the wind) and Musselburgh with the famous Mrs. Formans pub on the back of the green.

Wow James! Isn't this a great site. You get all this tremendous help to make your trip even more special and we get to live vicariously through your experiences.

Yes Mark, site is amazing at times. Conner/Lewis (not sure which is his real first name??) has given me some very useful information (along with others). This trip is going to be fun and interesting I just hope I can squeeze it all in and not rush through so much that we don't get to enjoy it. My stepson and I would just play golf all over Scotland and fit in some of the sites but that might create a "tough" situation with my wife and daughter in law. My wife's attitude has always been "play all the golf you want" just leave me the car and money so we can shop and go to the spa. But I want to share the experience of visiting my ancestors home with them too. Much planning to be done over the winter months!!

Are you bringing your own sticks or planning on shipping it ? Or just rent a set at the location ?
If you are planning on renting, do compare retal price from the ProShop and from other sources which will deliver to your hotel.

Or...you can be crazy like me and play hickory clubs on those old historic courses.

We are bringing our own clubs, just can't play with a rental set. The airline is charging us 100.00 each way for the clubs (per bag and we have two bags)

Goodness !
Have you tried to get a shipping quote from FedEx and other delivery company ?

It is much more to have them shipped. 200.00 per golf bag round trip is not bad.

Actually that is about what FedEx or someone else will charge to ship them from place to place DOMESTICALLY--and you'll be without your clubs for a week on each end of the trip. We had a recent thread on that.

Exactly Mark, I think it was about 425.00 to ship them (each bag) over seas and it was more expensive as the date of shipment got closer to when you needed them.