For a golfer a visit to St. Andrews is a spiritual golf experience. The Old Course, the R & A Clubhouse, and the ghost of Old Tom Morris are images in the mind that convey solemn golfing history.

Royal and Ancient Golf Club dates back to 1754

Reminder that the R & A had been quite exclusionary until just recently

British Golf Museum houses a detail history of golf in the British Isles

The Old Course begins and ends in the center of town

Tom Morris Golf Shop still peers over the 18th Green

Within you find his old workbench and his locker

A stroll around to the Himalayas for some recreational putting is a unique St. Andrews experience. Follow the road a little longer and you are at The Links clubhouse the terminus for the New and Jubilee golf courses. This building has it’s own pieces of St. Andrews history on display.

Old Tom, the face of St. Andrews, regales the hallway in front of the pub

Along with Seve, one of it’s most iconic Champion Golfer Of The Year

But a walk through this town, richly layered with 600 years of academic, religious, and cultural artifacts, one cannot help but feel that St. Andrews very much represents the soul of Scotland far beyond it’s reputation as the home of golf.

Heading back up The Scores one sneaks up on the vast presence of the University of St. Andrews University, the third oldest university in the English speaking world, that was founded around 1410. An all male institution until the late 1800’s, St. Andrews started offering a limited Masters of Arts degree for women in 1876 and by 1892 had become the first Scottish university to enroll female undergraduates on the same full time basis as their male counterparts.

The central quad looks like every other university…..distinguished yet tranquil

All kinds of beings matriculate there

And some of them were soon-to-be Royals

Religion reverently felt in St. Andrews at the St. Salvators Chapel since the 1500’s

A short walk up North Street brings you to the remnants of the old cathedral

Eerie reminder…religious persecution rerouted Scottish history……

Time and again

The final resting place of Young Tom Morris ….

And Old Tom Morris tie it together…

But as for most others it always seems to conclude at the 18th of the Old Course

July, 2016