The New Course. St Andrews - Discuss

[Stu-Pid]

I think this is an important course and hardly discussed anywhere. I haven’t seen that many photo’s either.  Partly I guess because there’s not a lot of elevation change or standout photo op’s and so it’s hard to capture.  Hopefully these will give an idea but they were taken on an overcast day last August.

The Scoresaver says the course was paid for by the R&A who “appointed Edinburgh engineer B Hall Blyth to oversee the preparations and then entrusted the layout of the New Course to Old Tom Morris.”  It opened in April 1895 and “is perhaps the most intact of all his  (OTM) major designs, with only a few extra bunkers and some new tees added to his original creation.”
The fairways have lots of 4-6’ undulations and some of the greens are on plateaus. It’s also sandwiched between The Old and The Jubilee so it does loose a little for not having its own sense of place. However I had a ball playing this L-R on the way out and the course is basically out to the Eden and back again with only 9, 13 and 15 offering major changes of direction.  The truism is if this course were anywhere else it would be a favourite. I felt it had variety and interest throughout and was a good honest links course that I could enjoy day after day.


Hole 1

Is a gentle 336 yards with an odd rough ridge running from 250 yards to just short of the green. The Scoresaver said lay up, but off the yellows it was chocks away and I got a favourable bounce and started with a 3!  The greens tend to be largish but with some undulation.









Again not too taxing at 367 yards just avoid the bunkers either side of the tee.  However it has to be said at only 250 yards to clear them you can understand why they don’t hold pro comps on this course.




Next, the best hole so far, 511 yards snaking round to the left and featuring a double green shared with the 15th.   Lovely ‘rumpled eiderdown’ fairway. This green is wide but short and I ran off down the back.





Fourth  369 yards with a more testing drive.  With less to aim at this felt more like TOC.  The hole then turns left and plays to a huge green with bunkers on the left. Cool hole.







Fifth -  this owes something to the 8th on TOC although it plays up to 180 yards.  The green is 25 yards deep and twice as wide with a huge conical depression on the right hand side. The only time I’ve seen one similar to that was at Alwoodley.




This was early one Sunday morning and the locals were out with their trusty dogs collecting balls. He must have had 60 in his pockets already.



6.  445 yards sterner stuff and a great bunkerless hole, playing a little L-R






7. 356yards  and only 274 to the cross bunkers.






8 Can be extended to 504 but whites are at 481, Again cross bunkers, this time at 285 (whites).






9 225 yards with the wind now howling behind me.  I think I took my 3R and I’m not long but went through the green. The green is in a punchbowl and is is effectively blind from the tee. Ideally you bounce in from the left.  The second best par 3 at ST Andrews?



The back 9 mostly played towards town.


Starts with a stiff 464 yards with only a single fairway bunker.  Blind tee shot over a maker post and a sinuous fairway.  I was having a ball really striking it well and I allowed for the now very strong R-L wind aiming well outside the post, even so I saw the wind turn it 90 degrees off to the left. Reload and same thing. Miraculously I found them both even though one had cleared the dunes on the LHS of the fairway!







11th 368 yards and we’ve turned back towards the Eden again.
This time I somehow managed to keep the drive down the Left side which was not where I needed to be. Found a bunker but could only play back away from green. Miserable 7 on what looks like a nice mid length hole with a receptive green. Oh how easily I’m suckered!



12th 518 yards and straight back to town. Features a step down at approx 240 yards.  I can’t understand why these aren’t maintained as fairway to give a boost forward?











13  157 yards.  Again the green seems like a large oval but with enough internal movement to keep things interesting. 3 bunkers protect the front.



14  386 yards and another cool (almost) bunkerless hole There’s a short one way off to the right suggesting the hole once played much wider? . Finally lost a ball here.



15 394 yards with another great crumpled fairway.  5 bunkers are scattered to seemingly random effect but the wind brings them all into play sooner or later. You come into the double green almost end on.





The final stretch.  Although the course reputation suffers from its location, any human (Pat Mucci therefore excluded) would get a thrill playing these holes back towards the Old Grey Town.

16 on paper this looks like several of the others 431 yards long with a rumpled fairway and an oval green, but you never got that feeling playing it.





17 Simple but effective (sums up the course really).  229 yards



18.  408 yards with some big ridges in the green.  A good finishing hole.




This course divides people. It would be interesting to hear what others think.

Great review as always.  

I played The New Course on a cold and very windy February day and to say it was challenging would be a massive understatement!  The 9th was particularly brutal with the wind coming in hard off the water.  Overall I really liked the course, and think that in many ways it's superior to The Old Course.

I'd definitely be happy to pay to play it again.

[liyxapt]

I am lucky enough to play alot of my golf up there and must say that I have always enjoyed the new. Not overly tough (unless the wind blows of course), but always great condition and great greens (it has to be, its st andrews). However, I would say that I prefer the Jubilee course over it any day of the week. A much sterner test and I feel a better lay out. Did you get the chance to play it?

[2puttpar]

Great course, have played it several times and always really enjoy it.  Have played it in a gale and it was a real test!

[Dave_Buck]

Nice post - it brought back happy memories for me - I loved the New Course.  I played last year on a lovely sunny day with a reasonable wind - absolute links heaven.

Eight of us played and we all found it hard  to say if we prefered the New or Jubilee - they are both excellent.


Dave

[srp973]

Played it many moons ago before the days of digital cameras so nice to see the pics.

From what I remember it was a good fair test of golf and with the wind being off the right on the first few holes got to play the Old Course as well...

We played with a local who rated it as the toughest of the Links Courses at St Andrews and would play the New by choice every day.

[freded]

Played it a few years ago in quite a stiff breeze.  Really enjoyed it and found it much easier going out into the wind than coming back downwind.  Think I shot 2 over front and 7/8 or so coming back.   

Never played the Old so can't compare but I really enjoyed it.

[Stu-Pid]

Played it a few years ago in quite a stiff breeze.  Really enjoyed it and found it much easier going out into the wind than coming back downwind.  Think I shot 2 over front and 7/8 or so coming back.   

Was the opposite for me.  Struggled on the front 9 but then played really well on the back 9, I think my SB points were something like 12 and 21.  That was good enough to win the day by 4 shots if I recall correctly, the wind really was brutal!

[mad4glf]

Looks good i played the "Old Course" in 1987 what an experience but looking at the pics looks pretty straight forward but like most links type courses when the wind blows it suddenly makes the course a right bitch!

[Below Par]

Two contrasting views

The first is form Jim Finegan who has probably played more golf AND more courses in GB&I than the combined efforts of the participants of this  website.


Finnegan
“Over the years I have found myself listening, from time to time, to those who prefer the New to the Old, claiming that the New is more honest, less capricious, that it presents its demands fairly, that the visitor has a chance here, that, in short, it is the better course.  There is considerable truth in this brief but not in its conclusion. Yes, the new is good golf, at times very good golf. But it is not great golf.”

Secondly George Pepper was the editor of the American Golf magazine and then 'retired' to Scotland and wrote an entertaining  book about it.  Two Years in St Andrews.

Pepper
“I tended to agree with my neighbour Eric Reid, who was fond of noting that “the Old Course is not the best course in the world, it’s not the most beautiful, and it’s not the most difficult...it is simply the most famous course in the World”. IN fact, a near-year in St Andrews had led me to the view held by many of the locals, that the Old was neither the best course nor the hardest course in town! Those distinctions belonged, respectively, to the New and the Jubilee.”


I'm interested in how good people think the New is?