ST ANDREWS, SCOTLAND | Visitors to the R&A’s World Golf Museum were being asked to share their favourite memories of St Andrews last week, and most of the contributions were much as you might expect. “Watching Seve win the Open in 1984,” wrote one. “Coming here on holidays with my granddad,” said another. “Making a birdie at the first,” added a third, little knowing that someone else would comfortably trump their boast with: “Winning the 2013 Women’s British Open!”
That golfer, of course, was Stacy Lewis, and her straightforward love of the auld grey toon shone throughout the entire week of the 2024 AIG Women’s Open.
“This is one of my favourite places in the world,” she said with undisguised pleasure. “It’s the home of golf, it’s where the sport started, and I remember when I played the Curtis Cup here [in 2008] my local caddie told me how differently the course first played, how the holes were played in reverse, that it was originally 22 holes, and how we got back to 18.
“I’m a big believer that you don’t move forward in anything without knowing your past, and knowing how the game started is a part of that,” added the 39-year-old American. “For so long we’ve watched the guys play here, and to have female names added to the list of past St Andrews champions is really, really cool.”
“There’s nothing else quite like it. Where else do you see normal people just standing around watching golfers complete their rounds? It’s just incredible. I prefer it here to home.”
Georgia Hall
Lewis was far from alone in being thrilled by her surroundings. Museum staff relate how golfing tourists will often arrive with a sense of having completed a pilgrimage to the town. For one fan who sat alongside the first fairway on Thursday afternoon, it took no more than a read of the Old Course’s various features to be left gasping in reverential awe.
“The Spectacles, the Coffins, the Beardies,” she said, continuing with: “Shell Bunker, Hell Bunker, the Principal’s Nose.”
“The Road Hole, the Jigger Inn,” her companion added. “The Swilcan Burn, the Swilcan Bridge, Granny Clark’s Wynd, the Valley of Sin.”
The players were not moved to levels of such near-poetry, yet they were equally alive to the special nature of a town hosting just its third edition of the championship.
“I want to buy a place up here, that’s how much I enjoy it,” said England’s Georgia Hall. “There’s nothing else quite like it. Where else do you see normal people just standing around watching golfers complete their rounds? It’s just incredible. I prefer it here to home.”
Her compatriot and friend, Charley Hull, may or may not have been avoiding the town’s hostelries while contending for the title, yet she was perhaps a little drunk on the atmosphere when giddily claiming that, “it would be a special win, something that you dreamed of as, like, a baby.”
Hull and Hall were staying in the Old Course Hotel, relishing opening the curtains upon waking and rubbing their hands in glee at the prospect of another day tackling the wind. Scotswoman Gemma Dryburgh was in the same establishment and was asked about her room. “I’m overlooking the car park unfortunately,” she said. “But eating breakfast while peering out across the Old Course and then walking to work, that’s pretty special.”
Defending champion Lilia Vu called the week “surreal”; Australia’s Stephanie Kyriacou opted for “iconic”; American Lexi Thompson celebrated the town’s respect for the game, and her fellow countrywoman Ally Ewing fondly remembered her first, brief, experience of the Old Course when nearby Kingsbarns hosted in 2017.
“I’m not sure if it was Tuesday or Wednesday, but late in the day Katherine Kirk and I walked up to the first tee and asked if we could play,” she said. “We played 1, 2, 3, and then there was a torrential downpour, so we just walked up 17 and 18. My first taste and, wow, it is very special.”
Lydia Ko conceded that she was enjoying the experience vicariously through her husband, Jun Chung. “It’s a bucket-list place for a lot of people, but I’ve never been a big golf nerd,” she acknowledged. “So, it’s never been, OK, I want to go to these top 100 courses, but this is a week when you’re walking over the Swilcan Bridge and looking at all the architecture and thinking, Wow, I’m in a very special place.”
After her first round, she added: “This year is more special because I have my family with me. It’s my husband’s first time in Scotland, and he’s playing Dumbarnie Links this afternoon because 18 holes of spectating is not enough. He played Kingsbarns on Monday in the rain. I’m glad that he’s getting the experience and that he’s getting Scottish weather.
“He made a birdie at Kingsbarns, so we’re hoping for more of that today. He hit the tour at the R&A museum yesterday, and he was super excited about it. That’s one of the cool things I’m going to take away from this week, what we’ve shared together.”
South Africa’s Ashleigh Buhai, winner of the championship in 2022, said: “I am a golf nerd, and Facebook reminded me of a post from when we were here nine years ago. I wrote ‘Driving into St Andrews, just got chills’ and I think if you’re a golfer who appreciates the game, that’s what you get when you come here.”
Her final tale had little to do with the home of golf but is worth retelling.
“What better place to play my last one?”
Catriona Matthew
During the four extra holes that she and In Gee Chun played to determine the winner, the broadcast repeatedly focused on her husband, David, in the gallery. His every agonised twitch and contortion was television gold.
“Yes,” Buhai said with a wry grin, “people do remember him more than me. We were in Cincinnati airport just after the win and I had the trophy with me. David loaded my clubs on the belt and the guy checking us in said to him, ‘You look familiar. Hey, you ran on the green.’ Then he turned to me and said, ‘But you won the tournament.’ I was like, Yeah. Hello, I’m here!”
Meanwhile, another past champion, Scotland’s own Catriona Matthew who won at Royal Lytham & St Annes in 2009, thought it the ideal location to say goodbye to the championship and her LPGA Tour career after making a birdie-3 at 18 in her second (and final) round.
She was a little sheepish about the demands for a schmaltzy farewell wave on the Swilcan Bridge, but when she said, “What better place to play my last one?” no one had an answer. As it had been all week, St Andrews was just perfect.
E-MAIL MATT
Top: Stacy Lewis calls St Andrews one of her favorite places in the world.
Luke Walker, Getty Images