Overview:

Designed by five time Open champion Peter Thompson and owned by St Andrews Old Course Hotel, The Duke’s Course is a classic inland Scottish course and the perfect complement to St Andrews’s famous links. Situated two miles from St Andrews, the elevated parkland setting of the Duke’s Course provides majestic views over the coastline to Arbroath and the countryside to the Highlands.

Spurred by the ever-growing demand for tee times at St Andrews, the Old Course Hotel secured the purchase of the former Craigtoun Hospital and 330 acres of surrounding farmland in 1992. The project to build an 18-hole championship golf course began in earnest in 1993 when, on September 1st, the first sod was turned in the mission to build what is certainly one of the finest inland courses in Europe. Opened for limited play in 1995 and for general play by 1996, Dukes has become the latest jewel in the St Andrews’s golfing crown.

Being a stout admirer of the work of renowned designer Alistair Mackenzie, Thompson has succeeded in creating an enjoyable, tempting, relatively torment-free golf course, very much in the Mackenzie mold of design. Beautifully sculpted holes exploit the natural features of the stunning parkland setting and the course lends itself ideally to the pitch and run game. The fairways are characterized by many small undulations and groups of bunkers, and while the greens are constructed not to punish but charm, do not underestimate the challenge imposed by what is a long and difficult golf course.

The Craigtoun estate, which has sported rich, fertile grassland for centuries, presents the ideal location for a modern course. Boasting plantations of mature trees, the layout pitches and rolls through bracken, over burns and around ponds, generally alien to golf in St Andrews. The venue has long contained a golf course in the fantasies of local golfers. Now that fantasy has become reality, and the end result has surpassed even the greatest of expectations.

Course review content courtesy of Golf Publisher Syndications