It's official: even the oldest course on this planet has determined to hit the fitness center. The Outdated Course at St. Andrews, the birthplace of golf, is getting ready for a small however important revolution forward of the 2027 Open Championship. We're not speaking a couple of rebranding or a nostalgia stunt. That is precision beauty surgical procedure: a facelift to outlive 2025 drivers, supersonic balls, and gamers who smash 330 yards like peanuts. The issue, finally, is easy: the Outdated Course can not afford to be merely "historic."
St Andrews, information
The R&A and the St. Andrews Hyperlinks Belief have introduced a plan of "enhancements and restorations" to adapt the course to fashionable golf. The aim? To take care of the course's allure whereas making it a real problem for contemporary professionals as soon as once more. This isn't the primary time it's occurred: between 2000 and 2005, for instance, roughly 350 yards had been added. However this time the work is extra delicate, extra surgical, extra strategic.
And it is available in direct response to what occurred throughout the 2022 Open, when St. Andrews was nearly demolished by drives and wedges. A birdie pageant the place the wind appeared an pointless visitor. The problem immediately is to make each gap a selection once more, not a formality.
The Outdated Course is getting longer: gap by gap
The course will go from 7,313 to 7,445 yards: +132 whole yards. Small on paper, however decisive in substance. Listed here are the principle modifications:
fifth gap (par 5) – New tee added: +35 yards. The golf green stays large, however the brand new distance will drive gamers to decide on between a dangerous drive to the fitting of the bunkers or a cautious layup.
sixth Gap (Par 4) – Elevated by +17 yards, with the tee moved again: an extended second iron and drives that now graze new bunkers moved into play on the tee shot.
seventh Gap (Par 4) – Added +22 yards: one of the photographed holes, now extra technical. The crosswind turns into an element once more, and the second shot will turn out to be extra angular.
tenth Gap (Par 4) – Elevated by +29 yards. The "simple" line within the heart of the golf green shall be much less accessible: these wanting to realize yardage should flirt with the tough.
eleventh Gap (Par 4) – Raised and widened tee: +21 yards. It is without doubt one of the most wind-exposed areas of the course, and with this transformation, it can return to being the brutal gap everybody remembers.
sixteenth Gap (Par 4) – A contact of romance: the tee is prolonged by 10 yards, however extra importantly, the historic fairway line to the left of the "Principal's Nostril" bunker is reopened. Two new bunkers on the left facet will act as guardians. In essence, the St. Andrews of previous returns, the place daring meant taking an actual danger.
twelfth Gap (Par 4) – The one exception: barely shortened and with the tee realigned to enhance spectator movement and visibility.
Bunker Revolt
It's not only a matter of yards. It's the geography of danger that's altering.
Gap 2: The bunkers alongside the fitting fairway shall be moved decrease and to the left, in order to be in play for drives past 300 yards.
Gap 9: The method bunkers, together with the well-known "Boase's," shall be enlarged to suit squarely into the trail of those that intention too laborious.
Gap 17 (the legendary Highway Gap): The bunker shall be rigorously "restored," lowering the buildup of sand that lately had made it extra mild than it must be.
Gap 16: Two utterly new bunkers will enter the touchdown zone for contemporary drives.
Briefly, the Outdated Course not desires to be the goal of bombers: it desires to make them assume.
The explanation: to outlive the brand new golf
It's not an aesthetic quirk. It's a necessity. As we speak, a tour skilled hits a driver 320 yards, with a secure, spin-free flight and an 8-iron that lands like a laser. The par-4 holes at St. Andrews, designed to drive you to assume, have turn out to be drive-pitches. The Scottish wind is not sufficient to defend one's honor.
The R&A, with good sense, has chosen the extra delicate path: to not rework the Outdated Course into a contemporary monster, however to revive it to what it was: a psychological, not only a bodily, coaching floor. Prolong the place wanted, shorten the place applicable, and restore a way of danger.
The +132 yards could appear to be a element, nevertheless it speaks to a philosophy. It's not a lot the space itself, however the place and the way it's added. Each tee moved again is an invite to mirror. Each bunker moved is a query. And in fashionable golf, the place everybody hits laborious, the one who displays greatest wins. As The Fried Egg wrote, "It's not a course that modifications: it's a course that remembers the way it was."
