The Jubilee Course, St Andrews
St Andrews Jubilee Course often slips under the radar of golfers visiting St Andrews. If you are booking one of the Guaranteed Old Course packages or applying in the Private Advanced Tee Time Ballot, you will have to choose a 2nd St Andrews Links course as part of your package. The New Course is generally the preferred option if not playing The Old. We often recommend The Castle located 2 miles outside of town, a modern links with some risk reward fun playing on elevated cliff top terrain with panoramic views of St Andrews.
The Jubilee is the closest course to St Andrews Bay and the West Sands. Often golfers comment that The Jubilee is too challenging with its narrow fairways and numerous par 5’s. Due to it’s flat terrain we often receive comments that The Jubilee is not as interesting as The Castle, as forgiving as The New or as fun as The Eden!
After watching the St Andrews Links Collegiate live on Sky Sports/NBC back in October we decided it was time to re-play The Jubilee for ourselves last week.
Here is our summary of the course in 4 holes.
Hole 1 – Willie Auchterlonie Par 4, 333 Yards
Named after the 1893 Open Champion, Willie Auchterlonie, who upgraded and extended The Jubilee course, this is a gentle opening hole to help take you out to the more interesting ones. The 1st & 18th holes are after all used as the driving range when The Open or Dunhill Links Championship come to town.
Hole 8 – Eden’s Edge Par 4 355 Yards
As the name gives it away you play along the beautiful Eden estuary looking out towards Leuchars. The green is surrounded by banks on three sides.
Hole 12 – The Butts Par 5 514 Yards
A large dogleg right to left. The Butts played downwind on our visit. We had a blind approach to the green after a tee shot down the left resulted in being blocked out by gorse. Therefore we accepted the lay-up to 100 yards short of the two-tiered green. Hole 12 is the point of the course when you have made the final turn and play all the way back into town, a very enjoyable feature on The Old, New & Jubilee.
Hole 15 - Steel’s Gem Par 4 335 Yards
Named after Donald Steel who redesigned The Jubilee in 1988 and gave The Jubilee its Par 72 championship layout. Steel’s Gem is a short strategic Par 4 with a dramatically raised green located in a 20 ft high sand dune. You don’t need the driver here as the fairway really pinches in at the landing zone with dunes and mounding, resulting in a blind approach if offline.
Summary
Overall the Jubilee makes a worthy addition to the itinerary of visiting golfers who want to play a traditional links located in St Andrews town. After the 2nd hole once you pass the Greenkeeping Centre golfers are treated to a fine stretch of natural links holes lined by gorse with fantastic turf. You’ll particularly enjoy the stretch from Holes 7-10 when out at the point of the Eden Estuary. Furthermore, The Jubilee is conveniently located at St Andrews Links Clubhouse within easy reach of the hotels and regular shuttles during high season to The Golf Academy.
Images courtesy of Torval Mork.
