St Andrews Old Course Prints

For many golfers a St Andrews print is the one picture that stands for the whole game. Linda Hartough's Old Course paintings cover its most recognizable places: the Swilcan Bridge on the 18th, the 17th Road Hole in three versions, the shared fairway of the 1st, and the 14th. She is the only artist commissioned by both The R&A and the USGA, and her book Love Letters to the Home of Golf collects her writing on the course.

The Old Course was not designed so much as worn into the land. It goes out and back along a narrow strip of links, and most of its greens are shared: seven huge double greens, each with two flags, serve 14 holes, and only the 1st, 9th, 17th and 18th have greens of their own. The bunkers were sited by play and weather rather than by an architect, and many have names. Hell Bunker guards the approach on the long 14th. The Road Hole, the par-4 17th, plays over the corner of the Old Course Hotel, which stands where the railway sheds once did, to a green with a deep pot bunker in front and a road and stone wall behind it.

The 1st and 18th share one enormous fairway in front of the clubhouse of The Royal and Ancient Golf Club. The Swilcan Burn crosses the 1st, and the small stone Swilcan Bridge carries players over it on the way home, which makes it one of the most photographed places in golf. Near the 18th green is the hollow called the Valley of Sin.