Fairmont St Andrews Bay is situated approx. 15 minutes drive from St Andrews, there are 2 courses on the site, the ‘Torrance’ and ‘Kittocks’ (formerly known as the ‘Devlin’). The site has plenty of parking, a modern clubhouse, good changing rooms, practice facilities, friendly staff and a pricey seafood restaurant. This is 5 star resort with 5 star golf on offer at reasonable prices if you book your T time from a well known website. The standard green fee in summer is £95, I paid £48 and pretty much had the course to myself, teeing off at 8am.
I played the course mid August of 2018, during the heat wave, at a time when most courses were baked out and in poor condition due to the heat in this period. However all parts of the course were immaculate, with perfect tee boxes, lovely lush green fairways, and undulating fast greens which ran true. The course has 4 Par 3's, 11 Par 4's and 3 Par 5's, and there are 4 tee boxes to suit all levels of golfers, I played off the yellows.
• Championship 7,192
• Medal 6,752
• Yellow 6,327
• Forward Tee’s 5,904
There are many memorable holes on this course which hugs the rugged coastline of St Andrews Bay, it offers fantastic clifftop views across the river Tay, and St Andrews Town can also be seen from the course. The 2 best stretches of holes are holes, 5-11, and holes 15-18. Although not a true links course, it plays like a links course and has some nice touches such as double greens on a couple of the holes. Below are a couple of highlights from the course.
Hole 7 is a fantastic par 4, and is breathtaking hole to look at from the T. The hole hugs the coastline to the left, has fescue on the right and 3 cavernous pot bunkers ready to catch an errant drive, these bunkers would not look out of place on a links course. Your approach shot is to a double green which is perched on the edge of the cliff top, this is not a hole to go long on your approach.
When I finished the 11th hole and turned away from the clifftop views to head inland to play the 12th, my heart sank as I felt the best of the holes were likely to be behind me, however I was proved wrong. Holes 15-18 are strong holes with 15,16 & 17 making the most of clifftop vista's; the 15th is the signature hole.
Hole 15 is a long par 4 which dog legs right, a low stone wall runs along the right hand side of the fairway, and the approach shot is into a green which is approx 60ft below you, the green is framed by views across the River Tay in the background and the green has steep drops offs to the right and back of the green. If you make par here you've done well.
Holes 17 and 18 used to belong to the Torrance course, however they were both added to the Kittocks course during a redesign of the course.
Hole 18 is a great finishing hole, which again looks stunning from the T. The T shot is intimidating with deep fescue rough left and right, a narrow fairway and a pond to the left of the fairway to catch any drives pulled to the left. The approach is to an elevated green which has plenty of slope on it, this would make a great match play hole.
Overall I would throughly recommend Kittocks, and would go back there again. It is currently ranked as 72nd in Scotlands top 100 courses, and is ranked below Leven which is at this time ranked as 42nd in Scotland. Having played Leven the day before (which was in poor condition) I would play Kittocks every time.
I've not played the Torrance course, I believe it is more demanding than Kittocks, Therefore i would say play Torrance if you want a tougher challenge, and play Kittocks if you want to experience some great golf with fantastic vistas.
Finally, so why do I call it the selfie course?
The views are so good on this course, you will find many golfers taking selfies, and when I went to play the 17th hole, I found a couple of non-golfers who were from the hotel on the T taking selfies; thankfully they did move on quickly when I arrived on the T.
Date Monday, 03, December 2018
