From a press release: St Andrews Links has become the first Open Championship venue to achieve the prestigious GEO Certified ecolabel in recognition of its sustainability commitment and achievements. St Andrews Links Trust, which manages the seven courses at the Home of Golf including the Old Course and The Castle Course, has operated a sustainability programme for many years and this approach was described by Mike Wood, ... Read more

“One Golfer At a Time” - The Old Course's Humble Swilcan Bridge This short, sturdy little stone bridge might be overlooked anywhere else, but because it's at St. Andrews and the funnel which every golfing pilgrim or gladiator must pass, I call it “Golf’s Holiest Place.”  It’s weather worn stones and gentle arch that were erected some 700-800 years ago (no one knows exactly when) ... Read more

St. Andrews has already hosted just about everything and everyone great in golf, including plenty of British Open Championships, and now it is adding one more big event. Next spring, the birthplace of the game will play host the world’s first major public tribute to our sport in the form of the inaugural St. Andrews Golf Festival (March 28-April 1, 2012). The Festival is described as follows ... Read more

For sheer folly, nothing can quite match a travel magazine’s attempt to rate golf resorts. Take Conde Nast Traveler’s annual attempt in its April 2011 issue—please. The magazine’s 15th Golf Poll is even more outlandish than ever. You’d think they would have worked out the kinks of their Readers’ Poll by now. But no. They’re willing to let travelers who play golf (vs. golfers who travel) decide ... Read more

St. Andrews, Scotland – Kingsbarns Golf Links celebrated its tenth anniversary season in style with a 30 percent surge in rounds of golf by visitors.  More than 27,000 rounds were played this season over the famous links capping an excellent season. Such was the increase in demand that the season was extended by two weeks in November to accommodate additional play.  Kingsbarns also recently cemented its position ... Read more

published July 15, 2010 I’ve played the Old Course at St. Andrews five or six times.  I wouldn’t remotely say I understand it, but I’ve now played it often enough to see that it is possible to understand it. It’s like no other golf course on earth.  I’ve heard people say they don’t like it, and I’m always puzzled by that.  It’s not up to me to ... Read more

Who loves a good argument more than golfers?  You're sitting in a dark pub, post-round, and some guy says Ben Hogan had the best golf swing ever, and there'll be five other guys knocking over their Guinness to chime in that it was Sam Snead or Bobby Jones, or Tiger Woods, for chrissakes.  And if you get a bunch of golfers started debating about the ... Read more

A few weeks ago I wrote a story in which I declared golf course architect David McLay Kidd to be a sort of Picasso of his art-- stridently modernistic to a point so exaggerated that his Tetherow Golf Club, in central Oregon (as one example), appears almost an abstraction of itself.  Lest you misunderstand me here, I believe Kidd has taken his art form to ... Read more

A purely hit golf ball is a joy and wonder to behold. What the top pros experience in moments of peak performance is open to every golfer all the time. So is the purity of the game, and the golfer’s natural high – the energetic experience we get playing a pure  game, and using golf to help us remember and experience the joys of the ... Read more

New golf books usually hit the shelves either in time for Father’s Day or Christmas. Given that the days are getting shorter not longer, here are three fine new titles that will give Dad, or any golfer, hours of pleasure on those darkening nights. True Links: An Illustrated Guide To The Glories Of The World’s 246 Links, by George Peper and Malcolm Campbell (Artisan Books, $40), ... Read more