Fairmont St Andrews, Kittocks and the Torrance

The Fairmont at St. Andrews is south of town a couple of miles, overlooking St Andrews Bay. While it's a resort hotel, you don't have to stay at the hotel to play the golf courses. To me, I enjoy staying in town at one of several guest houses where we've come to know the owners over the years, and find the experience much more enjoyable in getting in touch with the local scene so to speak. There's two 18 hole courses here, originally, the Devlin and the Torrance courses, named for their architects. The DEVLIN name was changed to KITTOCKS, apparently to give it more a local and traditional flavor, and has been rerouted and now finishes with the 17th from Torrance as its 17th and the former Torrance 16th, now Kittocks 18th. The Torrance is a walking course, while Kittocks can be walked or ridden. The Torrance Course plays to over 7,200 yards from the back tees, and been redesigned since its originally opening in 2002. It's a highly regarded course, an Open qualifier for the 2010 Open at St. Andrews, and is the strongest of the two courses here. The Kittocks course plays to 7,192 yards, and was originally designed by Gene Sarazen with help from Bruce Devlin, and some some great holes along the Bay, but not up to the standards of the Torrance. Played here a couple of times, have found the conditioning to be a bit less than the highest standards, it's hard to tear myself away from the Old, Jubilee, the New, the Castle, and Kingsbarns, so with more than a week in St. Andrews, I'd probably play here again.