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St Andrews Castle Course opened in June 2008 to some fanfare quickly followed by a barrage of criticism. David J Whyte takes a look over the parapets at St Andrews seventh course to see how it has come on in the year the Open comes home to the Auld Grey Toon. ————0————- It’s the 1st April, April’s Fools Day, a bit early in the season here in Scotland but I had booked a round on St Andrews Castle course for the opening day of its season mainly because I was desperate to see what they’d done to the place. Some of you might remember my first article and outing on the St Andrews newcomer back in October 2008. Back then during its opening season there had been more flack than fanfare from golfers of every level. Now that worried me a bit! I’m used to hearing sob stories from Germans or mid-handicap not used to course conditions here in the Home of Golf. But when local professionals were telling me it was almost impossible to put a game together on the Castle, it looked like the new headland course on this Old block was heading for the guillotine. As it happened it was a glorious spring day, the wind a little perky out of the southwest and a touch of a chill in the air but after two holes striding across this magnificent outlook with its unstinting views across the North Sea, St Andrews and all the way up to the hills of Angus, there was soon a warming thrill to the blood. I knew this property well. I had been asked to photograph it from the air at least a decade ago when one group had spied it out for a new golf development. Several other groups came and went in the duration but it was St Andrews very own Links Trust who finally had the temerity to put their money where their mouth was a build a new golf course. Things had conspired around them to force the decision. First of all in 2002 Kingsbarns had opened only 5 miles south of the Auld Grey Toon. Its two Californian developers had hit the exact note and Kingsbarns was a huge success. I hope it continues so as there’s been trouble on its greens this past two seasons. Then St Andrews Bay opened and although its two courses weren’t quite the shining stars of Kingsbarns, with some modification they are on the right road. They said it was the pressure on the town’s existing links that gave the Links Trust the push to create the Castle but I think it was more the opportunity to open another high-ticket venue. You might detect in my writings the slight unease I have with the Links Trusts material obsessions these past few years. I’d been driving past this property for years either on my way to play Kingsbarns (just down the road) or play merry hell with my musical buddies near Crail. The property on which the Castle Course now stands was then (and not so long ago) a set of dank, uninteresting fields spread over a headland, 100% agricultural and tractor-friendly! Apart from the panoramic views across to St Andrews and the North Sea, even the resident cows must have felt blasé. But someone saw it otherwise. As construction got underway I was somewhat startled at the lumps and bumps that rose out of the sod as if a rampant, giant mole had hit town.

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