Old Course work completed early

The world-renowned All Blacks rugby team from New Zealand visited the Links. They called in to the Practice Centre before taking on the Old Course.

Work got underway yesterday (Mon) on an extension to the St Andrews Links Golf Practice Centre (GPC) which will incorporate a golf academy equipped with the latest digital analysis and ball-tracking technology.

Muirfield Construction has been appointed by St Andrews Links Trust as the lead contractor to carry out work on the GPC extension.

Today the 600-year-old course is played in an anti-clockwise route but in the days of Old Tom Morris it was played clockwise, starting on the 1st tee and driving towards the 17th green, then driving from the 18th tee to the 16th green and so on around the course, bringing a different set of hazards into play.

The Old Course will be set up in reverse for three days in 2006 – Friday 31 March, Saturday 1 April, and Monday 3 April. Golfers who wish to book in advance have a choice of three options starting at £115 for a two-round package of the Old Course and either the New Course or the Jubilee Course. Three-round packages, allowing golfers to play the Old Course in both directions, are also available.

Colin Montgomerie made up six shots on overnight leader Kenneth Ferrie to win today's Dunhill Links Championship

England's Kenneth Ferrie takes a five shot lead into the final round of the Dunhill following a 67 on the Old Course

Colin Montgomerie today shot 65 on a blustery Old Course to earn a share of the course record set at The Open by David Frost. He later praised the 'incredible' condition of the links. Colin leads by one on 9 under par.

Officials from the R&A have praised the layout of the new seventh St Andrews Links Trust course at Kinkell, south of St Andrews, as a milestone has been reached in its construction.

Three holes have been seeded and head greenkeeper Allan Patterson has now carried out the first grass-cutting on the new cliff-top course.

Work is progressing well on the site following delays with poor weather earlier in the year. Most of the 220 acre site has been shaped and the top soil has been replaced and grass seed sown in selected areas. The first of the three seeded fairways to germinate is on the 12th hole.

Golf professionals and celebrity partners start one of the richest events on tour today. The Dunhill concludes at the Old Course on Sunday. Tadini, Beem and Howell lead on 5 under.

Tom Gault (left), the recently installed captain of the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews, today paid a visit to the Links Trust and was taken on a tour of the facilities by general manager, Alan McGregor (right). Mr Gault was accompanied by his wife, Barbara.

A new director of coaching has been appointed by PGA Golf Management to head up the new golf academy at St Andrews Links Golf Practice Centre.

Steve North joins today (Mon) from the David Leadbetter Golf Academy in Malaysia, one of the leading golf academies in Asia, where he held the post of director of instruction and worked closely with the world renowned golf instructor.

Visitor interest in guided walks at the Home of Golf has risen dramatically this summer with the numbers of people visiting the Old Course surging by almost 50%.

With the golfing spotlight falling on the venue for the 2005 Open Championship more than 2000 visitors have taken the opportunity to walk the famous links and find out more about its history.

The walks have been run each day in July and August and take in some of the most famous landmarks in golf such as the Swilcan Bridge, the Road Hole bunker and the Valley of Sin.

St Andrews Links Trust played host to the grand finals of the Wee Wonders competition for 2005 over the weekend of September 10-11.

It was the third consecutive year that the Links Trust has staged the finals of this prestigious national golf competition for children aged between 5 and 12 years of age.

A total of 70 youngsters from Great Britain and Ireland earned the right to play on the Balgove Course at the Home of Golf after battling their way through over 80 qualifying rounds and nine regional finals.

St Andrews Links Golf Practice Centre reopens on Monday (Aug 22) with a completely new look after its temporary closure during the Open Championship.

Golfers will notice some substantial changes following the three month closure including the replacement of the astroturf and sand flooring with a new hi-tech flooring system that has been installed throughout the centre apart from the foyer area. The new rubber-chipped flooring is pored and will be cleaner and much easier to walk on in spikes.

Leading qualifier Craig Simmons triumphed in the 2005 Eden Trophy and Marilyn Henderson won the Strathtyrum Trophy today.

St Andrews Links Boys' Open Champion 2005, Chris Wood

St Andrews Links Junior Ladies' Champion 2005, Anna Scott

Murray Mitchell Trophy winner 2005,
Sean Thompson


Girls' Open Quaich winner 2005,
Gillian Simpson

A golf auction with a difference reached its conclusion today (Tue) with bids worth more than $28,000 in total flooding in for the 18 tee plaques from the Old Course at St Andrews.

Bids have been received from around the world for the plaques which have marked the holes graced by many of the game’s legends at the Home of Golf including Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods.

The online auction closed at 12noon today by which time a total of $28,442 had been raised. The highest bid for an individual plaque was for the famous Road Hole, the 17th, which fetched $4,250

The New, Jubilee and Eden courses are back in play today. The Jubilee has revised tee positions on 1 and 18 and the green fee will be £18. Old back for public play this afternoon. Ballot for tomorrow. Note: advanced bookings on the Old are taken until October.

Tiger Woods is once again the St Andrews Open champion. His 14 under total was five clear of the field. Colin Montgomerie was runner-up. Lloyd Saltman gets Silver Medal.

England's Simon Dyson today drove the first shot of the 2005 Open. The early play's highlight was Jack Nicklaus' birdie at the first hole. Tiger Woods picked up where he left off in 2000, scoring a 66. Australia's Mark Hensby came in late on with a 67 to lie second.

Open champions from the past and present met on the first tee of the Old Course last evening

Practice rounds begin today on the Old Course. The Open begins on Thursday.
Phil Mickelson paid a visit to the Old Course today in preparation for The Open. Here, he is pictured on the 3rd tee.

From 2006 golfers wishing to refine their skills at the Home of Golf will be able to use a state-of-the art coaching facility which is set to become one of the foremost golf academies in the UK.

Golf Channel's new series, Big Break IV, visited the Home of Golf with contestants given a rare chance to play at the 17th and 18th holes.

Filming at the 18th hole

Two-time St Andrews Open champion, Jack Nicklaus, is a revered figure at the Home of Golf. To mark the final appearance of the greatest ever player of the game at the Old Course St Andrews Links has commissioned a special limited edition print.

Naomi Edwards of Ganton, Yorkshire, today won the St Rule Trophy. She defeated Felicity Johnson and Heather Nolan at the second extra hole. All three ladies had tied on 225.

A superb Sunday of low scoring on the Old Course from Lloyd Saltman of Craigielaw, near Edinburgh, saw him clinch the Links Trophy. A third round 69 followed by a final round 65 gave the nineteen-year-old the title by four shots from overnight leader Jamie Moul. Saltman's aggregate of 275, 13 under par, is a new tournament record.

Open champions Jack Nicklaus and Bill Rogers were in St Andrews today. They took a clinic at the Golf Practice Centre before playing the Old Course. Nicklaus shared his trenchant views on the nature of the modern game and articulated his desire to see a limit on technological development, particularly relating to golf balls.

Throughout this spring work has been going on to replace some of the old drainage system in St Andrews. One curious fact about the history of golf is that the diameter of a hole is four and a quarter inches because just such an old drainage pipe was adapted to cut the turf on the greens of the Old Course in the nineteenth century. If only the pipes of St Andrews had been twice that size! Below is a piece of drain taken up from Links Road, beside the 18th green of the Old Course.

St Andrews Links Trust played host this week to the Rt Hon Jim Wallace, deputy first minister, who launched this year's National Science Week at the Golf Practice Centre on 10 March. The venue proved the perfect setting for the event as Mr Wallace was given a demonstration of the science behind pioneering testing equipment used to assess the very latest golf equipment.

Mr Wallace and children from Greyfriars Primary School learned about the flight and trajectory of golf shots using data provided by a radar tracking system, which was demonstrated by Dr Steve Otto, assistant director (research and testing) for the R&A. The ingenious system used radio-wave technology to track the Minister for Enterprise and Lifelong Learning's shot and provide detailed information about club-head speed, launch angle and carry distance.

Players from 18 different countries have entered this year’s St Andrews Links Trophy and are set to challenge home based players for what is recognised as Britain’s top amateur stroke play title.

The Links Trophy will be played over the Jubilee Course and the Old Course from May 20-22 with a strongest ever field of 144 players, all with handicaps of +1.9 or better.

Surprisingly, there has been only one overseas winner in the 16 years that the Trophy has been played and that occurred in 1990, when Stuart Bouvier of Australia lifted the silverware in the second year of competition. Why this should be is open to debate but what is certain, in this Walker Cup year, is that players from GB&I will be pulling out all the stops in an attempt to catch the eye of the selectors.

Throughout May 2005 St Andrews Links Golf Shops will be running a prize draw for online customers. Two winners and their guests will each receive weekend tickets to the Open Championship, two nights' hotel accommodation, and hospitality in one of our clubhouses at the heart of the Links.

A new one-stop service to make booking a golfing holiday in St Andrews easier was launched today. The hotline - 01334 474799 - allows golfers to book tee-times on courses in and around St Andrews. These include the New, the Jubilee and the Eden at St Andrews Links, the Torrance and the Devlin at St Andrews Bay, the Dukes Course and Kingsbarns.

The 4th annual Father and Son Tournament has been won by Muneaki and Munekazu Tachibana from Japan. The better ball stableford competition was played this year on the New Course, Carnoustie, Crail and the Old Course. In an exciting climax, the Tachibanas just edged out Jonathan and Sebastian Nixon by one point, scoring 141 points to the English pair's 140. The American couple of Pete and Pat Shields came in third with 138 points.

Muneaki and Munekazu with their trophy

To celebrate the Old Course hosting the Open Championship for a historic 27th time, a limited edition gold putter has been created using the finest materials and the skills of specialist craftsmen. The Old Course 22ct Gold-Plated Putter was created by Scotland's foremost golf club makers and is only available online.

They have thwarted the world's top golfers from Nicklaus to Nakajima, and now the Old Course bunkers are once again ready for action. With less than four months until the Open Championship returns to the Home of Golf for the 27th time, St Andrews Links Trust greenkeepers are priming the Old Course bunkers for the new season.

The work means notorious traps, such as the Road Hole Bunker, Shell and Cartgate, are being returned to a state of play following a major rebuilding programme. In total, 94 of the 112 bunkers have been revetted to counter the effects of erosion and to prepare the course for the 134th Open Championship.

Callaway Golf Europe Ltd, one of the world's leading golf club manufacturers, has agreed a two-year sponsorship deal with St Andrews Links Junior Golf Association (SALJGA) at the Home of Golf. The company has agreed to be the title sponsor of junior tournaments held at St Andrews, as well as the Challenge and the Mini Tours organised by SALJGA.

The death has been announced of Tom Jarrett, author of the definitive history of St Andrews Links and one of the principal movers behind the establishment of the Links Trust. Mr Jarrett was 89.

Callaway Golf and St Andrews Links have jointly developed a range of merchandise that reflects the highest standards they both demand. Items include St Andrews Links logoed Odyssey putters, golf balls and stylish accessories. 'This is a collaboration between two of the great names in golf and we are proud of the results,' said Danny Campbell, retail manager of St Andrews Links Golf Shops

St Andrews Links Trust has appointed a head greenkeeper for its seventh course, which is being created just outside St Andrews.

Allan Patterson, head greenkeeper on the Kings, Queens and Wee courses at Gleneagles, will take up the post on 4 April and will oversee the construction, opening and long-term development of the cliff-top course.

The appointment was made following a thorough selection process involving over 70 applicants from as far afield as Australia, Canada and the USA. The decision, as the Trust's links superintendent Gordon Moir indicates, was based on Allan's experience and knowledge.

12 sets of ex-Links hire clubs are on their way to Malawi.The sets of Ben Hogan Apex Edge clubs were donated to the R&A by St Andrews Links Golf Shops with the understanding that they would be used to help foster the development of golf in Africa. Local Scottish parliamentarian, Ted Bocklebank, will be part of a delegation visiting Malawi in mid February when the clubs will be handed over. 'The importance of sport in breaking down racial barriers cannot be underestimated,' he said. 'Sport allows people from all backgrounds to come together and compete in equality.'

Stuart Wilson, the British Amateur Champion, today revisited the scene of his triumph at the Old Course. Taking part in a film for the BBC, Stuart is preparing for his visit to Augusta in April.

The Old Course is not the only St Andrews Links golf course to receive a well-earned makeover this winter. The Links Trust's greenkeeping team has been busy performing important re-contouring work on the Strathtyrum course in preparation for what is expected to be a busy season prior to and following the Open Championship in July.

Professor Ron Morrison has been appointed a Trustee of St Andrews Links Trust, the body responsible for the preservation and management of the links. He was nominated by the Royal and Ancient Golf Club.

The lure of managing the latest high-profile course at the Home of Golf has prompted an unprecedented response to a job advertised by St Andrews Links Trust, the body responsible for the preservation and management of the famous links. Sixty of the world's top greenkeepers have applied for the position of head greenkeeper at the Trust's new 18-hole development on the outskirts of St Andrews.

Jim White has been re-elected as Chairman of the Links Management Committee (LMC), the body responsible for the management of golf facilities at St Andrews Links. His re-election for a further 12 months follows three consecutive years in the chair.

Mr White originally took up his post in 2002. Since then he has overseen a number of important developments, including preparations and planning for a seventh course and a number of significant changes to greenkeeping management.

At their first meeting of the new year on Monday 10 January, St Andrews Links Trustees elected Alastair Dempster as their new Chairman. His election follows the retiral of Dr Duncan Lawrie who had come to the end of his third three-year term as a Trustee, the last four years having been Chairman.

The mammoth bunker rebuilding programme that has been under way on the Old Course ahead of The Open has been completed, two weeks ahead of schedule. The turf now has the optimum chance to take root and establish itself before next spring and summer.

Over 12,000 square metres of turf from the Links Trust's nurseries were used in the project and staff were seconded from other courses on the Links to help out.

St Andrews Links has appointed Gordon McKie to the position of head greenkeeper of the 110-year-old New Course following David Coull's return home to Luffness, East Lothian.

St Andrews Links will be observing a three minute silence today at noon in memory of the victims of the Indian Ocean tsunami. Claxons will sound at both clubhouses and the first tee of the Old Course