ST. ANDREWS, THE OLD COURSE is the place to play golf in Scotland. The 2000 British Open was played here and has been here many times in the past.

The Old Course is THE one course that everyone tried to get a tee time on. Many times you will need to make a reservation a year in advance but you still can go to the starter early in the morning and sign up as a walk-on. Generally, you will be able to get out on the course that day.

The 1st tee and 18th green and next to each other. And naturally, everyone takes a photo crossing the bridge in the 18th fairway as shown in this postcard. This photo shows the 1st tee box and the 18th green to the right side.

The course layout below shows the hole routing and how to play each hole. In almost all cases, this advise is solid.

We stayed in the Hazelbank Hotel, about a par 4 from the 1st tee on the Old course. The hotel sign is just to the left of the 'do not enter' sign.

Every morning we ate breakfast in the small dinning area of the hotel. Generally we were able to get the table by the window and from there we could see the St. Andrews clubhouse.

This is what we could see from the breakfast table. The clubhouse is directly behind the monument.

The day we played the Old Course it was windy and rainy but they don't stop play. Only if there is snow or the wind is really severe, which we thought it was that day!

My nephew, Bob, enjoyed the course and made birdie from the back edge of the 1st green with a 30' downhill 'snake'.

To illustrate some of the bunkers, Bob posed for this shot.

On the Road Hole, the 17th, we played from the back tee box at 461 yards and had to hit over the building by the hotel. I was in the fairway with 223 yards to the green and hit 3 iron just on the front. But, I had to putt up a bank to the hole and left it 5' short and missed the putt for a par.

The following are the 'standard' photos on the 18th on the Swilken Bridge, which were taken about 8:15PM and there was still about an hour of light left. We came back another day to get a "better photo" of us on the bridge.

Going out towards the other clubhouse, which is used for the other St. Andrews golf course, we can look back at the clubhouse and the town.

To the right of the mound above is the world famous public putting "area", the "Himalayas". Some of the holes are over 30 yards long and many have sever hills and valleys.

St. Andrews is a typical British or Euopean town with many small shops such as for vegetable, meat, bread, etc. The ruined St. Andrews castel was build about 1100AD. The old church was constructed in the early 1200AD and is located at the west end of the town.

To read more about our advanture on the various courses and see some photos of where we were, please select one of the locations below.