Why a trip to Fife is the perfect way to start your season
Would there be any better way to start your 2021 season than to plan a last-minute St Andrews golf trip?
The Home of Golf is on every golfer’s bucket list but it isn’t just about the Old, New, or Jubilee courses in and around St Andrews that would create a perfect trip.
Fife has plenty of tremendous golf courses to offer for those wanting to tick off Top 100 golf courses from your bucket list.
NCG Top 100s Tour: St Andrews golf trip
Our NCG Top 100s Tour offers numerous chances to book yourself a golf trip with your friends or family as the events are split into groups of three or four venues to make up different swings.
Here, we have combined three of Fife’s great courses: Lundin Links, Ladybank, and the Golf House Club, Elie.
All three courses are within a 30-minute drive of St Andrews if you’re wanting to combine them with a trip to one of the Home of Golf’s three courses.
Lundin Links (May 18)
NCG Top 100s ranking: 65th in Scotland
Designed by local hero and five-time Open champion James Braid in 1908, Lundin Links came about after detaching itself from neighbouring Leven to deal with the rapidly increasing membership of the shared club.
The new course, following some early tweaking, still stands over 100 years later. Now a pedigree championship course that has often hosted qualifying prior to a St Andrews Open, Lundin Links has well and truly come into its own.
Price: £50
Ladybank (May 19)
NCG Top 100s ranking: 42nd in Scotland
Fife has few peers when it comes to links but this Scottish region is also blessed with several inland courses of outstanding quality. Founded in 1879, Ladybank is one.
It has hosted Local Final Qualifying for the Open on seven occasions since 1978 and offers a wonderfully tranquil experience. Ladybank provides valuable wildlife habitat for a range of flora and fauna; red squirrels, in decline in the UK, are resident in the swathes of Scots pines.
Their larger brethren, the grey squirrel, can be found in the broad-leaved species of beech tree in the avenue leading to the clubhouse.
Price: £50
The Golf House Club, Elie (May 20)
NCG Top 100s ranking: 85th in GB&I | 27th in Scotland
Elie is about as traditional a golf course as you will find anywhere in Scotland. It epitomises Old Tom Morris’s design principles and is an object lesson in what makes a golf course engaging and enjoyable to play. Curiously, there are no par 5s and just two short holes at Elie. That leaves what must be a record-breaking 16 par 4s. Yet such is the quality of the design that at no stage do you notice this during the round.
The game has been played across this gently rippling linksland since the 15th century. The village of Elie sits in the East Neuk of Fife, some 12 miles south of St Andrews. And just like St Andrews, the golf is seemingly inseparable from the community itself.
Price: £50
Old Course ballot (May 21)
A great way to round off your golf trip to Fife would be to enter the Old Course ballot on May 21.
To enter the ballot you must have at least two golfers in your group and it closes at 2pm, two days prior to the day you wish to play. Succesful ballot entries will be notified by 4.30pm the same day.
With there being no American tourism to St Andrews, now is your best chance to play the Old Course if you are yet to tick it off your bucket list.
About the NCG Top 100s Tour
The NCG Top 100s Tour is bigger than ever in 2021 with more than 35 events across England, Scotland, and Wales.
Each event has prizes on offer courtesy of headline sponsor TaylorMade and the Champion Golfer at the Grand Final at Southport & Ainsdale will win a trip of a lifetime to the 2022 Players Championship.
Be sure to secure your place as a number of events are already sold out and events are proving more popular than ever.
