St Andrews is a special place

WHEN it was first announced that St Andrews would be the venue for next month’s Ricoh Women’s British Open, it was perceived as a real breakthrough for women’s golf.

St Andrews is known worldwide as the Home of Golf and also very much as a male domain. That the Royal and Ancient should allow women professionals to play on their course says everything about how far women’s golf has come in the last 25 years or so.

Yes, St Andrews has hosted top women’s amateur events, including the British Amateur championship and the annual St Rule Trophy, but never before a professional women’s event.

Anyone who has ever been will acknowledge that the ‘Auld Grey Toun’ has a unique atmosphere. It is home to a famous university which Prince William attended, and has an almost village-like feel to it. It is full of golf-related shops, notably the Scottish Woollen Mill which sells every type of knitwear and is located next to the 18th green, and Auchterlonies, opened by Willie Auchterlonie, winner of the 1893 Open Championship at Prestwick.

Whether you want sophisticated accommodation and food, or something a little less costly, there is something for everyone.
You won’t fail to bump into players, their caddies and their entourages as you go out for your evening meal, or pop into the world-renowned Jigger Inn for a drink after a long day spectating at one of the the golfing world’s great events.

I first played St Andrews in 1983, and can still remember the feeling of playing the famous links. I had really vivid memories of watching Jack Nicklaus win the Open Championship there in 1970 when Doug Sanders famously missed a two-footer on the eighteenth green to win.

I recall, in the play-off, Jack driving through the 18th green – the first player to do so. I defy anyone to play there and not feel a sense of all the history that has gone before, or think of all the players who have had their dreams dashed in the greenside bunker on the Road Hole.

There are very few Championship courses in the world that the general golfing public can play on, or where your golfing status doesn’t gain you preferential treatment. Having only 11 greens also sets the Old Course apart. The huge double greens will undoubtedly give most of the competitors in the WBO the longest putts they have ever had in their lives!

I know of lots of fans who are going to St Andrews to be part of this year’s historic championship. As Catriona Matthew told us, there is also a real buzz among the LPGA players about coming over to play. No matter that the Women’s British Open has been played over some of our most famous courses, St Andrews has a cache about it that is very special in the world of golf.

The champion will be someone who relishes the challenge of the at-times lunar landscape, and who has either experience of playing on the historic links, or during practice has plotted every hidden bunker and nuance of the enormous greens to the last detail.

Not all players fall in love with St Andrews immediately, but no one can dispute the challenge that it presents, or the sense of history pervading the course and indeed the whole town. A new chapter in its long history will be written when the best female golfers on the planet compete for one of the four Majors in women’s golf.

I along with thousands of other golf fans from around the world will be excited to be there and share in the history!