The Old Course, St Andrews

Golf was being played on this stretch of common land by the early fifteenth century, early enough that James II banned it in 1457 for keeping young men from their archery. It is still public ground, held in trust for the town, and the Royal and Ancient clubhouse beside the first tee is only one of several clubs with playing rights. It became "the Old Course" in 1895, when a New Course opened next to it.

The course grew without a single architect. Its shape is the linksland itself: fairways shared going out and coming back, seven huge double greens, the Swilcan Burn in front of the first green, and the Road Hole seventeenth with the wall and the road hard against the green. From the championship tees it measures 7,305 yards.