“The Jubilee Course opened in 1897— built in less than three months for $178, it was intended for women golfers and beginners.”
where the estuary met the bay). The logically named New Course, with a routing by Edinburgh engineer W. Hall Blyth, opened in April of 1895. Tougher and tighter than its neighbor, the New would surely garner greater accolades were it set anywhere other than right beside the most famous golf course in the world. Two years hence the Jubilee Course opened, so dubbed because it debuted on the 60th anniversary of Her Majesty Queen Victoria’s coronation. Set between the New and the West Sands, the original 2,669-yard, twelve-hole course (expanded to eighteen holes in 1905) was built in less than three months for £178 and change and was intended for women and beginners, whom the real golfers wanted off of the Old and the New. Still feeling squeezed, in 1914 the Town Council extended the reach of the links inland with the H.S. Colt- designed Eden Course, which borders the Old Course along the east and hugs the estuary to the north. In 172, the wee Balgove nine-hole course opened on twenty-six acres purchased from the Strathtyrum estate.
hose were the assets the Links Trust inherited when it was established in 1974. There was no cash reserve, no sustainable income, no growth potential, and no resources. So grim was it that if the head greenkeeper needed turf for the Old Course, he carved out chunks from the other courses, like the paupers who filched sod to patch their roofs five hundred years before. The one thing the first trustees did have, however, was vision. Recognizing the unique station the links and the town enjoyed as the home of golf, the trustees embarked on an effort to raise money and awareness so that they might upgrade their assets, which in turn would enhance their image, which in turn would attract tourists, who in turn would spend pounds, dollars, yen, and so on, so that the Links Trust could generate a surplus, which could then be plowed back into the links.
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A clear strategy supported by fiscal prudence put the Links Trust in a position, in 1981, to take a mortgage on the venerable Rusacks Hotel, which overlooks the eighteenth hole of the Old Course. A proper locker room was added to accommodate golfers in need of a loo or a place to change, and
four years later the Links Trust sold the hotel at a profit. The proceeds helped fund the upgrade of the Eden Course, a new and improved Balgove, and the addition of the 5,620-yard, par-69 Strathtyrum Course, as well as the practice center, Eden greenkeeping facility, and the Links Clubhouse, which opened to much hullabaloo in 1995. At the time it was the only clubhouse in town that did not require membership, a place where tourists and non-affiliated locals could eat, drink, shop and shower. Located at the south end of the West Sands, it served the Old, New, and Jubilee courses, as well as the “Himalayas,” the popular humpy-lumpy layout beside the second tee of the Old, where the Ladies’ Putting Club of St. Andrews staged competitions and gaggles of people just out for giggles gathered to play.
hree entities comprise the Links Trust. The executive team, headed by Alan McGregor, is responsible for day-to-day business and answers to two higher authorities: the links Management Committee, which oversees the operation of the golf facilities, and the Trustees, who set policy and ensure that the links are kept within the spirit and the letter of the 1974 act of Parliament. Volunteers all, they bring to the party an eclectic mix of backgrounds and perspectives. Among those serving at the time Course No. 7 came together were the provost of Fife, a University of St. Andrews professor, a former Olympic runner, a hotelier, a farmer, the owner of a local launderette, the proprietor of an old folks home, a landscape. gardener, a housewife and a minister.
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