Arriving at St Andrews an afternoon in September with clear weather and fresh air and not having golf on the menu can be a bit stressful, or like today, pure pleasure.

Rather than rush here on the A92 from Edinburgh, we have driven out along Fife’s coast to get in the right frame of mind for our reunion with St. Andrews. Driving on “the wrong side” of the road, we have travelled leisurely along the Firth of Forth, passing the old charming villages of Elie, St Monans, Anstruther and Crail.

We have looked wistfully through the gates towards Kingsbarns but we have particularly taken our time and eaten a long lunch at the restaurant at the new course, Castle Course, a few kilometres southeast of St. Andrews. Outside the window are the ninth and eighteen double greens, like a green infinity pool out towards the North Sea.

But the Castle Course can wait a day. At the moment we’re doing what we can to slow our pulses for the next day's morning round on the Old Course.

The fact that we have been in St Andrews a handful of times but did not play the Old Course should probably be regarded as unusual. We have played virtually all of the courses in the area but never the Old Course. We have hung on fences at the first tee and the eighteenth green each year, yet never gone out on one of the oldest golf courses.

This time it's different.

This time we got a tee time.

On St Andrews Trusts screen down at the first tee, our names glimmer in the twilight. It feels daunting, a mixture of anticipation and nervousness.

True to the last few years we round off the first day at St Andrews at the wonderful and relatively newly opened Seafood restaurant. The restaurant received an award as Scotland's best in 2005 and is built like a glass box just above the cliffs behind the golf museum.

After the crabs from Pittenweem and good champagne, we walk the 90 steps to the apartment in Gillespie Wynd where we have lodged ourselves.

Nervousness about playing the Old Course is always about the first tee. Possibly sometimes even teeing off and approaching the eighteenth green but in most cases the pleasure is so great that we simply have no desire to be nervous. There are however so many yarns about what has taken place on the first tee through the years that it would take too much time to immerse yourself in them, but they all deal with failures.

In all its forms…

Duffs, quick hooks, slices out over the fence or the like.

The starter has seen it all.

All the nervousness that permeates the golfer’s experiences around the first tee on the first hole of the Old Course is increased tenfold. There is no other golf hole in the world where the players are so shaky on the first hole.

That there is high anxiety on the first tee, we witnesses ourselves the next morning.

Our tee time gives us plenty of time to study the Japanese, British and Scandinavians, but especially the Americans send balls back and forth across the enormous grass area that is the first and eighteenth fairways. The truth is there cannot be many other introductory holes in the world that give the player as much surface area to hit.

To see all these players go out on the Old Course calms us down…at first. If they can do it, we can do it. One is apparently not put off from the course due to a duff, slice or crazy hook.

But heart palpitations come without fail when our names are called. The starter, who has probably taken a course to calm nervous golfers on the first tee, gives us a warm reception and has a ringing laugh that is assuring as we head off without disaster. After the approach over Swilcan Burn the nervousness has subsided and the game is pure pleasure.

The Old Course, as the course regarded, is not like any other course you've ever played. It feels very old; the holes intersect here and there, the different experience of double greens.

The course is most beautiful out on the point where it turns. It is most grand on the final two holes. To get to hit one’s drive on the seventeenth hole over the hotel, exactly as seen on television, is magical. Trying to take the diabolical green bunker out of play on the same hole is incredibly exciting.

The experience of the Old Course is very different from the other magical golf experiences we have while at St Andrews.

We play the newly renovated Duke's where none of us has ever had over 30 points. We fight our way through the trip’s most enjoyable round in the pouring rain and wind on the New Course, a match that lasts until the eighteenth. We loosen the purse strings and spend a whole day dedicated to fairytale-like Kingsbarns. Being at Kingsbarns from morning to night and playing two rounds can actually feel like getting a little taste of paradise. A place you never really want to leave.

To finally have taken the historic golf hike on the Old Course feels wonderful. But more than being an unforgettable golfing experience, I think it brings together all the feelings we have for St. Andrews, as a town and a place. St. Andrews is so much more than the Old Course, so very much more.

St Andrews is a town I would love to spend time with golf nevertheless.

In St. Andrews, I often stay for quite a long time at the agents' shop windows and dream of a small flat that you could renovate and fix up, and where my friends could come and go and join me down to the course on the moor.

Golf has become much less essential in our travels here. We often talk about that wanting to find more time to just wander around the city, sit at one of the cafes, walk along the mile-long West Sands beach with a dog or just hang out down at the Old Course and laugh at or admire approaches and tee-offs.

Last fall I took the liberty of spending two weeks in this wonderful city.

After reading the wonderful book "Two Years in St. Andrews" by George Peper, the under 25 year old editor of Golf Magazine, I have thought that, since two years can be difficult -two weeks anyway is a bit along the way towards the of spending more time in St Andrews.

'The Auld Grey Toon ", which St Andrews is often called, is very far out on the beautiful peninsula that is Fife. But what distinguishes St Andrews as not being yet another tired and sleepy village is namely Scotland's oldest university.

The city is full of life and movement, culture and cuisine, cafes and art. Clearly the reason for this is the more than 7,000 students who attend this University that started 1413.

We have put most of the tee times after lunch in order to wander around the city in peace and quiet, have lunch at the club and still have plenty of time before we cook dinner in the flat or go into town to find dining table. We have at last given ourselves time to not only rush to and from the courses, but can still quietly soak up the atmosphere of walking all the way from the R & As famous clubhouse, along with The Scores, right up to the old port, where we look toward the new Castle Course. Or to walk up and down Market Street, peer into the small alleys, or stop by any of the pubs for a beer.

One night we actually meet George Peper, golf editor-in-chief who sold his house outside of New York and bought an apartment on The Links, along with 18th hole on the Old Course. He is dressed in a dinner jacket, walking two dogs on the 18th hole!

I'm thinking about how to do as Mr. Peper - create a life here in St Andrews.

Hmmm, the pound is dirt cheap, I have the dog for the beach, the children are adaptable, the wife loves to hike and what is more beautiful than the coast of Fife? There’s just the thing with work...

But all this is worldly and should be able to solve.

The big question is how to solve the challenge of playing Kingbarns as often as you like at manageable green fee prices…

By Henry Meerburg

Five great restaurants in St Andrews

The Seafood Restaurant
Bruce Embankment
www.theseafoodrestaurant.com

The Doll’s House Restaurant
3 Church Square
www.dolls-house.co.uk/

The Glass House Restaurant
80 North Street
www.houserestaurants.com/glass_house

Vine Leaf Restaurant
131 South Street
www.vineleafstandrews.co.uk

Ziggy’s Restaurant
6 Murray Place
www.ziggys.fslife.co.uk

5 great bars in St Andrews

 

The Road Hole Bar
Tel: +44 (0)1334 474371

www.oldcoursehotel.co.uk

 

5 golf courses in St Andrews you can't miss!

There are around 10 really tasty courses in and around the town of St. Andrews, but we have selected the 5 you absolutely should not miss if you want to experience the best of St. Andrew...

Old Course
Rating: 4
Course designer: Unknown
Year built: Unknown
Rating: The world's oldest golf course. Atmosphere and experience. Must of course be played some time in a true golfer's lifetime.
Green fee: GBP 143
www.standrews.org.uk

New Course (Photo Getty Images)
Rating: 4
Course designer: Old Tom Morris
Year built: 1895
Rating: Said to be the city inhabitants’ favorite course. A bit narrower and clearer in outline than the more famous neighbour course, the Old Course.
Green fee: GBP 71
www.standrews.org.uk
 

Jubilee Course (Photo Getty Images)
Score: 5
Course designer: Angus / Auchterlonie / Steel
Year built: 1897
Rating: Considered the toughest challenge of the courses on the moor outside St Andrews.
Green fee: GBP 71
www.standrews.org.uk

Castle Course (Photo Getty Images)
Rating: 4
Course designer: David Kidd
Year built: 2008
Rating: The latest addition to courses in St. Andrews. Opened for play in 2008. A masterpiece with stunning views of sea and city.
Green fee: GBP 131
www.standrews.org.uk

Kingbarns
Score: 5
Course designer: Mark Parsinen / Kyle Phillips
Year built: 2000
Rating: The world's most expensive "pay and play 'course? No members, but a unique golf experience for those who are willing to pay. The sea is in scent and field of vision distance from each hole.
Green fee: GBP 181
www.kingsbarns.com