St Andrews Green Fees: Old Course Cost and the Ballot

On the last fee schedule published by St Andrews Links Trust, a high-season adult round on the Old Course cost £340, dropping to £240 in the shoulder season and £170 in winter. The other six courses are dramatically cheaper — the New and Jubilee at £150 in high season, the nine-hole Balgove at £15.

The number most visitors get wrong is not the Old Course fee. It is the assumption that £340 is what a trip to St Andrews costs. It is not, in either direction.

The full green fee table

St Andrews Links is a seven-course public complex run by a trust, not a private club, and it publishes one rate card a year covering 14 April to 31 March. These are the adult per-round figures from that schedule, with shoulder and low-season rates in brackets.

Course	Holes	High season	Shoulder	Low season
Old Course	18	£340	£240	£170
New	18	£150	£105	£75
Jubilee	18	£150	£105	£75
Castle	18	£180	£125	£90
Eden	18	£75	£55	£38
Strathtyrum	18	£55	£40	£28
Balgove	9	£15	—	£8

Two things stand out in the small print. Under-16s pay about half the adult rate on the six other courses but the full £340 on the Old Course — there is no junior discount there. And residents of St Andrews, children of residents, and students at the University all pay £85 for the Old Course, a quarter of the visitor rate.

For US, Canadian and Australian readers: at mid-2026 exchange rates, £340 lands roughly in the $430–460 USD band, which puts the most famous course in golf below Pebble Beach’s 2026 resort-guest rate of $695. Convert on the day you book rather than trusting an old figure.

Freshness warning: the Trust reprices every April, and the schedule above is the one published for the 2025–26 fee year. Check the current rates on standrews.com before budgeting. Old Course fees have climbed sharply and repeatedly: National Club Golfer’s price history records £195 in 2021, £270 in 2022 and £295 in 2023.

The cheap way in that most visitors miss

Here is the part the travel packages do not advertise. You can play a full week of links golf on the same turf, in the same town, for less than one Old Course round.

A worked five-round week at high-season rates:

Round	Course	Fee
1	Jubilee	£150
2	Eden	£75
3	Strathtyrum	£55
4	Balgove (9 holes, plays twice)	£15
5	New	£150
	Total	£445

Five rounds, £445. One Old Course round, £340. The Jubilee and New are both genuine championship links sharing the same ground and the same wind. If your trip budget is tight, the honest advice is to book two or three of the cheaper courses and treat an Old Course tee time as a bonus rather than a plan.

That is also the reason our breakdown of the average cost of a round of golf puts destination golf in its own category — the headline course distorts the whole trip budget.

How the Old Course ballot works

There is no general online booking for the Old Course in the way there is for the New or Jubilee. Most visitors go through the daily ballot.

• Entries are for 2, 3 or 4 golfers. Singles cannot enter the main ballot.
• You apply two days before play. Entries close at 2pm, results are usually posted by 4pm. Because the course is shut on Sundays, entries for Monday go in on Saturday.
• A handicap certificate is required, maximum 36 for men and women.
• It is free to enter and genuinely random. Locals call it the Old Course lottery for a reason.

If the ballot fails, two backups exist. Unreserved times on any 18-hole course are released one day ahead by phone, online or at the clubhouse desk. And single golfers queue at the starter’s box from early morning hoping to be slotted into an incomplete group — the oldest and most reliable trick in St Andrews.

The £45 route, if you live in Scotland

Since 2025 the Trust has run an affordable-access scheme called The Drive, and for 2026 it almost trebled the number of places. Nearly 2,000 discounted tee times were made available across the courses, with the Old Course offered at roughly £45 against the standard £340 — a discount of about 88%. Places are allocated by a separate free ballot and are restricted to golfers based in Scotland.

It is not a route for visitors. It is worth knowing about because it tells you something real: the Trust’s own view is that £340 is a visitor price, not a golfer’s price.

What the fee does and does not cover

The green fee buys the round. Everything else is extra:

• Caddies are arranged separately through the Trust and paid on top, plus a gratuity. The Trust does not publish a caddie rate on the green fee schedule, so confirm the current figure when you book — and see our guide to how much to tip a caddie for what to hand over afterwards.
• Buggies are restricted on the Old Course and generally need a medical certificate. Trolleys are the norm.
• Green fees are non-refundable once paid, unless the Trust closes the course.
• VAT: bookings made directly by individual golfers are VAT exempt; bookings made commercially are not. Book yourself where you can.

One last practical point. The Old Course’s low season runs from 1 November to 31 March, when the fee halves to £170 and fairway mats may be in play. A November round on the Old Course in horizontal rain is a different game from July — colder, browner, and arguably closer to what the course was built for.