St Andrews, Castle Course

A modern links with tremendously undulating greens. They are of consistent pace, but hit it to the wrong spot… Awesome views. Fun. A very good design. A clifftop course that is never dull.

The Castle opened to incredible hype in 2008, being the seventh course in the ‘Home of Golf’ and the first championship course in St Andrews to be unveiled for more than a century. The Castle is five minutes’ drive south of the town of St Andrews itself, just off the A917. Celebrated course architect David McLay Kidd admits he “pushed the envelope” with his much-anticipated design, so there is immense shaping on the fairways and especially on the greens. It is a 6,759-yard championship test buffeted by breezes. The 17th is a clear winner here, a 184-yard par 3 played across a ravine between a gap in the cliffs. Thankfully, there is an easy bail-out to the left! You gaze towards the Auld Grey Toun and the sea from its elevated tee.

RELATED: Best Golf Courses in Fife

Click here to find out where St Andrews ranks in Golf World's Top 100 Golf Resorts Europe

The newest addition to the St Andrews complex, the Castle Course opened in 2008.

Sat on the cliffs, the course plays like a classic links course despite only being playable for six years. With extreme, sloping greens, you must hit them in the right spots for your ball to hold.

• Course does not have: Bar
• Course does not have: Buggy Hire
• Course does not have: Driving Range
• Course does not have: Practice Green
• Course does not have: Pro Shop
• Course does not have: Restaurant
• Course does not have: Trolley Hire
• Course does not have: Dress Code
• Course does not have: Club Hire
• Course does not have: Handicap

• 5 out of 5 Breathtaking! 08 October 2014

  By Gary Ward

  What a place! After hearing various horror stories about it being unplayable and to expect 40+ putts etc etc we arrived with a little fear to say the least. The welcome was friendly and professional, the starter extra helpful letting us choose which tees we played from, given the scare mongering we opted for yellow! Afterwards all 4 agreed it was the best course we had ever played which given we had played the Old Course the day before was quite a bold statement! The location is simply breathtaking, whith fantastic views of the course and the sea looking across to St Andrews, The layout is tough yes but it is fair, yes the greens are huge and they are very undulating but they never have them too fast, around 9 i think is the norm. With care and a little skill they are fine, a couple of us came off with only 2 three putts and that was us not the course at fault! Your short game will need to be sharp but we all played around our handicaps apart from one show off who took the money at 2 under! Do not listen to the scare stories and if your anywhere near Fife do not miss the opportunity to play here. On a siide note about the staff, i dropped my Bushnell on the course, it was handed in the St Andrews Trust kindly packaged it up and returned it to me in Yorkshire!

• 4.5 out of 5 Stunning 22 June 2009

  By gdjohnson

  Underlating is not the word ! We played the Castle course of the last day of our golfing trip to St Andrews (April 2009) and to say we were lucky with the weather was an understatement. The sunshine was glorius and the views from the course of St Andrews were just fantastic. The course is very hard with tough par 4’s. as a 28 handicapper I struggled There are also bunkers grafted into the terrain and I found myself in them more than often ! The underlating greens were just superb and add to the tough challenge the course offers. The 17th was a delight to play all four of us making it onto the green over the cliffs. All in all a superb but tough tough course, if I’m going to be picky the welcome on arrival wasn’t amazing compared to the 2010 course we visited earlier in the year but we were there to play golf and it didn’t disappoint , it was everything and more than we’d expected and the whole St Andrews experience was just fantastic from start to end.