The latest alterations to St Andrews’ Old Course are being used in competition for the first time at the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship, giving the field an early test of changes made with the 2027 Open Championship in mind.
The programme has brought new and extended tees, longer holes and bunker restoration to the historic Old Course. This week’s event is one of the first substantial opportunities for elite players to judge how the revised layout affects decisions from the tee and into greens.
The DP World Tour said the work had been planned with St Andrews Links Trust and The R&A. Its stated aim was to increase the strategic challenge for leading professionals while preserving the course’s accessibility for local and visiting amateur golfers.
The Alfred Dunhill Links is played across the Old Course, Carnoustie and Kingsbarns, before returning to St Andrews for its Sunday finish. That format means competitors will encounter the alterations amid a multi-course test rather than during a standalone Old Course week.
Added length in place for championship week
The Old Course is playing at 7,375 yards for this tournament, an increase of 57 yards. New tees on the sixth and seventh holes are in use, while the tees on the 11th and 16th have been extended.
There is more work to come before the 155th Open Championship. The DP World Tour reported that the fifth and 10th holes will also be lengthened from the tee, while the championship tee at the 12th will become two yards shorter after a slight realignment intended to assist spectator movement. For the Open, scheduled from 15 to 18 July 2027, the intended championship yardage is 7,445 yards, 132 yards more than in 2022.
The changes reflect an effort to make the Old Course’s established defences more relevant to the distances reached by modern professionals. Jon Wood, the Old Course’s keeper of the green, said the lengthening was intended to make the par fives more genuinely testing depending on wind direction.
Wood also said the project had been informed by aerial images and old Open footage. He suggested that several details may not appear especially radical when set against how the course looked two or three decades ago, underlining the project’s emphasis on restoration rather than wholesale redesign.
Sixteenth hole offers a new decision
The most conspicuous strategic change is at the 16th. A former route on the left of the Principal’s Nose and Deacon Sime bunkers has been restored to fairway, having previously been grown in as rough. Two new bunkers have also been added in that area.
The hole retains out of bounds down the entire right side of the fairway and green. That combination could make the reopened route relevant without making it an uncomplicated option: players must weigh a line left of the bunkers against the danger that remains on the opposite side.
Elsewhere, two fairway bunkers on the right at the second have been shifted forwards and left to bring them into a more relevant line of play. New bunkers have also been introduced at elite-player driving distance on the sixth and 10th holes.
Wood said four new bunkers had been added overall, including the pair behind the 16th, and described the changes as providing golfers with additional strategic considerations. The competitive evidence from this week will be closely watched, although wind and weather will remain important variables on a links layout.
MacIntyre assesses changes while defending title
Robert MacIntyre, the defending Alfred Dunhill Links champion, said before a practice round that assessing the revisions was among the aspects he most wanted to see. The Scot indicated that he did not yet know whether the changes would make the 16th easier or harder, but expected many players still to favour the left because of the out-of-bounds threat on the right.
The BBC reported that MacIntyre became the first Scot in 20 years to win the tournament when he lifted the trophy last year. He said winning at home had been especially meaningful, despite what he described as an imperfect previous relationship with the Old Course.
His return comes with wider pressures in the closing part of the season. The BBC said MacIntyre is currently outside the qualifying places for the DP World Tour’s end-of-season events in Abu Dhabi and Dubai. He has also begun considering the improvements needed as qualification gets under way for Luke Donald’s team at the 2027 Ryder Cup.
For now, though, the immediate task is understanding a subtly altered St Andrews. The Dunhill Links will not settle how the layout performs at an Open, but it provides the first tournament measure of whether additional length, repositioned hazards and the revived option at the 16th produce the strategic questions intended.