Staying in Edinburgh for the Open and then moving to St Andrews to play golf at Lundin, Elie, Crail, Leven and Royal Burgess
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A St Andrews Open is always a little bit special, 2022 promises to be particularly so. 2022 marks the 150th edition of golf’s oldest Open championship. It’s a landmark number. Combining playing with a visit to the St Andrews Open 2022 is one every golf fan will doubtless have on their radar. Can it be done? How? and what is the cost?
As you might imagine, securing accommodation in St Andrews itself will be extremely difficult. The top hotels will be accounted for. So too will the B&B’s. We might get some joy on the 25 mile zone but even that will come under severe price pressure, and if we were honest, some of the places might be lacking a little bit in life. After looking over the ground, Faraway Fairways eventually considered that perhaps the best thing to do is base ourselves in Edinburgh and resolve to travel-in each day. What we lose in mileage we get back in experience for staying in the Scottish capital
Our chances of getting rounds of golf to complement your spectator experience are also going to be limited. Our best bets lie with the links courses of Fife. To give this trip an Open Championship theme we thought we’d try to play those which have performed the task as final qualifying venues, Lundin: Elie, Leven and also added Crail. As the clock ticks down however, we’ll find that these quickly become unavailable. Early booking isn’t a marketing ruse. It’s kind of essential
Generating a one size fits all price list is all but impossible. You might elect to simply adopt a spectator experience and nothing more? Alternatively you might seek to combine playing with watching. Some courses will offer early tee-times to permit you the chance to do both on the same day. You might prefer to put your golf days either side of the championship? which in itself of course assumes that you want tickets for all four days? Talking of tickets, this creates another 101 different pricing possibilities, which if we presented in its entirety would become overwhelming
Faraway Fairways aren’t in a position to offer you the expensive hospitality packages. Instead we’ve built what we might describe as affordable ‘everyman’ options. The golf with St Andrews Open 2022 is perhaps something a little bit closer to the spirit of the original game, and that basically means you and the links.
9 nights
Scotland
Transport
Self-drive probably works best. Scope for selective use of a train existsLogistics
Twin centre (Edinburgh & St Andrews) ‘back-to-base’. Daily commute to St Andrews from Edinburgh for OpenNon-Golf Offer
Strong - Edinburgh, St Andrews & FifeMileage
Medium to high - Approx 575 miles. Approximately 16 hoursTravel Class
Affordable option only. We've deliberately pitched a lower-cost, non-corporate optionOld Course
Low chance through the ballot. The course should re-open by Tues but demand will be high
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July 13th (W) - Royal Burgess
The exclusive west Edinburgh parkland course of Royal Burgess is the oldest golf club in the world with a continuous verifiable history (1735). The 4th and the 11th holes are normally singled out as the most challenging, the latter even having its very own ‘Swilcan’ bridge. The elegant clubhouse is a joy to the eye. ‘The Burgess’ is soaked in tradition and heritage, and enjoys the advantage of being in the heart of Scotland’s capital and so allows you to spend the evening like many traveller before you has.
July 14th to 17th - The Open, St Andrews
TICKETS
It would perhaps be inappropriate for Faraway Fairways to try and ‘guess’ your precise ticket requirements? There are after all an array of possibilities regarding the numbers of days and the different levels of access. We’d up generating an unwieldy price table were we try and cover every possible combination. The best solution is to make ticket purchase the subject of a separate discussion between us, and to omit them from any price estimates for now
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July 18th (M) - Leven
Leven Links is steeped in history, one of the oldest links in the world. As you might imagine of such a relic of the early days, Leven is an archetypal links course with fine bents and fescues, humps, bumps, hollows and “wispy” rough and of course a snarling burn! If we were to look for the most quintessential links course in Scotland, Leven would expect to the in the conversation. It’s a bit more than just this though. Leven has long been held in high enough regard for it to have hosted Final Open qualifying on behalf of St Andrews, as well as a number of national championships
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July 18th (T) - Lundin
Located on the Fife coast, Lundin rubs shoulders with golf’s aristocrats and has indeed been used as a final qualifying venue for St Andrews Opens. It’s a complex links course with open burns, an internal out of bounds (the old railway line), and strategic bunkering, which presents a challenge for the thinking golfer. Position from the tee rather than distance will yield just rewards on the scorecard. The course remains largely as laid out by James Braid some 100 years ago. The first five holes are in the classic links tradition. Players then cross an extinct railway line and play the nine ‘new’ hybrid holes of links and parkland turf. Back across the railway, the last four holes revert to the genuine links tradition.
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July 19th (W) - Crail
The Crail Golf Society is the seventh oldest in the world, and always popular. It’s a short, fun course defended by hazard rather than yardage, making it a thinkers track. You have to play shots over rocky bays, hit long par threes with greens perched atop vertical cliffs, and then hit a return drive from an elevated tee into fairways laid out invitingly below. Shots to greens seemingly engulfed by gorse, and curving par fours round sandy strands, all dare the golfer to cut off too much. Beware the fifth, no lesser an authority on Scottish golf than Sam Torrance regards ‘Hells Hole’ as the most difficult par 4 in Scotland. If all this wasn’t enough, Crail sits on the eastern tip of the Fife Peninsula and so adds ‘exposure’ to the garrison.
- 11th green
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- 13th green
- 12th fairway
- 10th green
July 20th (T) - Elie
Twenty minutes from St Andrews, Elie sits between two headlands affording players sensational views. Five time Open Championship winner Peter Thomson, summarised Elie thus: “It’s quirky and it’s the most enjoyable course I know. If I had my way I’d build Elie’s all over the world.” Indeed, the first tee features a genuine submarine periscope that allows the starter to peer over a blind hill to the fairway yonder before inviting you to “play away” once it’s clear. Elie is not a course that gives up good scores easily. The patient player who crafts their way around these cultured links will always fare better than the thoughtless bludger who tries to overpower them.
The St Andrews Links Trust don't publish ballot strike-rates. Faraway Fairways do occasionally succeed in extracting an off the record opinion however. In addition to this, we’re also able to draw on our own evidence, and that which we’re able to extract from credible co-operative partners (usually hotels) plus what other tour operators might tell us. We have a good guideline idea of strike rates by month of the year and by day of the week
It needs to be stressed that these are indicative averages only. Different parts of a month will behave differently dependent on any end of factors. The ballot is quixotic and unpredictable, Extended runs of good or bad luck can, and do, happen. They are provided in good faith, but can of course fail, and can't therefore be used as a basis for compensation
Ballot Strike-Rates
MONTH OF THE YEAR
| APR | MAY | JUN | JUL | AUG | SEP | OCT |
| 59% | 21% | 20% | 16% | 14% | 17% | 19% |
DAY OF THE WEEK
| MON | TUE | WED | THU | FRI | SAT | SUN |
| 20% | 21% | 16% | 23% | 15% | 30% | n/a |
St Andrews 'Guaranteed' Tee Times
There is a heavy price premium on a guarantee a tee-time. Plus they usually involve a minimum hotel stay in St Andrews of at least three nights, playing an additional St Andrews course is mandatory, and normally a minimum food & drink spend in a specified hotel. So are they worth it? The answer to that question really is "it depends ...". If money is no object, and you don't mind paying much more than you might need to, and you're short of time, then they might be. Otherwise Faraway Fairways wouldn't be convinced, and especially on this trip where we're likely to see a local price escalator working against this particular week
Handicap requirements
St Andrews Old Course - "a current official handicap card (Golf Club affiliated to a Golf Union/Association) record or certificate must be presented to the starter prior to play. Maximum handicaps – 24 Men, 36 Ladies. St Andrews will not accept letters of introduction from a local Club Professional”.
Players who are unable to meet this standard are invited to tackle the alternatives we’ve nominated instead.
Some known issues to consider
We can anticipate that accommodation in St Andrews for the Open week itself will largely be pre-sold (it won't even get to the market). We can equally anticipate that what little does find itself for open sale is going to be prohibitively priced. There is clearly a case for looking elsewhere and then moving up to St Andrews after the Open Championship leaves town
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