I live in St Andrews, one of golf’s great mythical destinations.
But even inside a myth, life doesn’t stop being life. When I lived and worked in New Zealand, I remember describing the experience as “the same shit, but with different weather”. Visiting somewhere and living there are very different propositions. That might sound ungrateful, but it isn’t meant to. St Andrews is a special place that’s far from ordinary, but the practicalities of everyday life remain: the weather, errands, traffic, tee times, tourists, parking, and all the usual small frustrations don’t disappear.
My relationship with St Andrews goes back considerably further than the four years I’ve lived here. I grew up elsewhere in Fife, and some of my earliest memories are of childhood trips and holidays to Craigtoun Park. I’ve known the town my whole life, and it was a well-considered choice when we moved here in 2022. Having retired, we were fortunate enough to be able to decide where we wanted to live. St Andrews was enormously appealing. The history, architecture, beaches, schools for our girls, surrounding countryside, familiarity and, inevitably, the golf. There aren’t many places that offer quite the same combination. I know, because we looked!
Of course, that also makes me part of the town’s changing demographic. I’m an early retiree who has chosen to live somewhere desirable, and I enjoy the benefits that come with its prosperity. However, I’m hardly an impartial observer, and I certainly don’t want to become one of those people who moves somewhere because they love it and then complains when others want to do the same. That would be like buying a house on a golf course and complaining about balls in your garden!
A Place of Pilgrimage
St Andrews has attracted pilgrims for centuries, long before golf became its most famous attraction. The ruined cathedral and castle remind us of the town’s religious importance. The crowds gathering at the Old Course suggest pilgrimage is still alive and well, albeit with a rather different focus. While today’s golfing pilgrims may be carrying clubs rather than seeking the relics of St Andrew, I suspect the anticipation is much the same. Some may simply be ticking another famous course off their list while others are fulfilling a lifelong dream. I’m sure many golfers would consider playing St Andrews akin to a religious experience.
One of my own regular pilgrimages is walking along the quiet, tree-lined Lade Braes into town, where I often find myself worshipping at the altar of Auchterlonies. Drawn in like a ball to a bunker, I seem to visit so often that I’ve occasionally been mistaken for a member of staff! Other times I might get a coffee and sit on the steps behind the first and eighteenth holes of the Old Course to watch golfers start and finish rounds they may have dreamed about for their whole golfing lives. The nerves on the first tee, the joy of hitting a good shot up the last, and the sight of someone hugging their caddie like a long-lost brother. The photographs, the relief and the sheer delight of finally playing the Old Course. These are moments that will live in their memories and be retold for years. When I remember to look properly, it’s hard not to be moved.
And I understand that feeling too. I’ve played golf since I was nine, and the Old Course has always occupied a special place in my imagination. As boys playing at Balbirnie, my friends and I would imagine holing putts on the eighteenth green to win The Open at St Andrews. Even after playing the real thing many times, I still find myself looking around and thinking how remarkable it is to be there, occasionally alongside some of the same childhood friends. Standing on the first tee, crossing the Swilcan Bridge or walking up the eighteenth fairway is never ordinary, no matter how familiar it has become. What a blessing.
Living with the Links
As a golfer, one of the great benefits of living here is having a resident Links ticket. It’s enormously good value, and I definitely don’t take it for granted, although it does come with compromises. Income from visiting golfers obviously helps make it possible, and I’m under no illusions about how different things might be if St Andrews Links operated as a purely commercial golf resort rather than as a charitable trust. Sponsored by Callaway and twinned with Carlsbad, California, perhaps?
But having a Links ticket and actually being able to play when you want aren’t quite the same thing. Demand for tee times is enormous, particularly for the Old Course, and hosting visitors on any course can be complicated. We can’t book more than a week ahead, and we enter the Old Course ballot just like everyone else, which makes planning difficult when friends want to organise their visits months in advance. There’s also a points system for bringing guests, and the allowance can disappear surprisingly quickly. Then there are the occasional requests to help people get onto the Old. I’m generally happy to try, as I rarely turn down the chance to play it, although I sometimes wonder whether they really want to play golf with me or if I’m simply their best chance of securing a tee time!
The Links Trust clubhouses are impressive, although I sometimes feel that the menus are more geared towards visiting golfers than those of us who just want a quick bite after a round. Finish after 11.30 am and the humble filled roll is no longer available, leaving you with a more elaborate and expensive lunch menu. It’s hardly a major hardship, but sometimes all I want is a coffee and something simple before heading home. Fortunately, the halfway houses on the Old, Castle and Craigtoun offer a magnificent steak and black pudding pie, closely rivalled by the pork and haggis sausage roll. Perhaps the solution is to eat more at the halfway house and forget about lunch afterwards. Or just nip over to the excellent Dook Café instead!
The Links Trust faces a difficult balancing act. In 2025, almost 300,000 rounds were played across its seven courses, with some accommodating more than 50,000 each. That’s an enormous amount of wear and tear, yet the greenkeeping teams do a remarkable job of maintaining and improving the courses. They deserve enormous credit for that. But there must be a limit to how much golf these courses can accommodate, which makes me wonder about the continued efforts to attract even more visitors. My social media feeds seem increasingly full of influencers enjoying St Andrews, but do we really need to keep finding new ways to promote it? After all, there is only one Home of Golf.
Beyond the Golf Courses
St Andrews is much more than golf, something I wrote about a few years ago in a rather light-hearted poem called The Auld Grey Toon. The beaches, the Lade Braes, the Botanics, the old streets, the Cathedral and Castle, and the simple pleasure of walking around a beautiful historic town all contribute to what makes it such a wonderful place to live. The University brings energy and an international character. How many butchers in Scotland offer a Thanksgiving special? Although judging by the number of students cycling without helmets or lights, some of them should simply be thankful they haven’t had an accident!
Visitors also help support a thriving local economy. St Andrews is prosperous and increasingly desirable, with considerable investment underway in housing, student accommodation, tourism and golf. That’s largely positive, but I sometimes wonder what all this success is doing to the town’s character.
The town centre has no shortage of coffee shops, charity shops, shops selling Scottish tat and an increasingly impressive selection of restaurants. Yet we’ve lost our local cookware shop and now face losing our Post Office. But at least we have a Hotel Chocolat! Of course, high streets are changing across the UK, and St Andrews is hardly immune. But everyday life here also seems to come with a St Andrews premium, whether it’s groceries, petrol, eating out or buying a house.
St Andrews is also changing physically, with developments such as St Andrews West bringing substantial numbers of new homes. More housing should be a good thing, particularly given the difficulties younger families and those working locally face in finding somewhere affordable to live. But I wonder how many of these new homes will actually meet their needs, rather than attracting more affluent buyers who can afford to choose St Andrews as their home. It’s not just housing, either. How many five-star luxury hotels can a town sustain, particularly given the seasonal nature of demand? I’m not arguing against further development, but St Andrews isn’t a large place, and much of its appeal comes from its scale, setting and character.
Perhaps that’s the real dilemma. St Andrews has always welcomed visitors, and much of its success comes from doing so. But how do we ensure that it remains a town people live in, rather than simply somewhere people come to visit? I don’t think its identity is under immediate threat, but I do wonder whether the balance is gradually changing.
Living With the Myth
There’s an obvious degree of contradiction in much of what I’ve written. I’m sure the St Andrews of my childhood had its own difficulties, and I don’t believe there was some golden age we should be trying to recreate. It would be rather selective of me to enjoy all the improvements while objecting to the changes that helped create them.
I genuinely love living in St Andrews, and right now I can’t imagine living anywhere else. It’s been a wonderful place for our children to grow up and go to school, and we’ve been fortunate to enjoy so much of what the town offers. Of course, everywhere involves compromises, and St Andrews is no exception. Mine just happen to include the occasional frustration of trying to get a tee time, finding somewhere to park or negotiating the traffic around West Sands on a sunny afternoon. And the less said about our supermarket provision, the better.
But I also recognise that my relationship with St Andrews won’t necessarily remain the same. Our children will eventually finish school and move on (one already has), and I wonder whether we’ll feel the same pull to stay here when they do. Will the golf, the beaches, the history and the quality of life be enough, or will we find ourselves wanting to be closer to wherever their lives take them? I genuinely don’t know, and perhaps that’s part of the point. Places change, but so do we.
In the meantime, I want to enjoy living here without taking it for granted. I hope St Andrews continues to welcome visitors from around the world, invest in its future and remain a thriving town, while preserving the qualities that make it so special to those of us fortunate enough to call it home.
And if I occasionally find myself stuck behind a camper van on the way to a tee time, perhaps I should just remember to leave home five minutes earlier.
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