Peter Thomson long argued The Old Course at St. Andrews was the game’s most important course and all others are mere copies.
Alister MacKenzie in The Spirit of St. Andrews wrote that it was the only first-class course in the world. “There is no second and Cypress Point (bearing in mind he designed Cypress Point) comes in a very bad third.”
Gary Player once likened playing golf on The Old Course at St. Andrews to playing golf in a bathtub. “St. Andrews does not reward precision and penalise inaccuracy as consistently as a top course should – and Augusta does,” wrote Player all the way back in 1965.
His wildly simplistic argument completely missed the point of the course.
“At St. Andrews,” writes Player, “a golfer may hook his tee shot badly and still be in a position to shoot at the green.” (Perhaps best not to remember Ian Baker-Finch’s out-of-bounds hook off the 1st tee in the 1995 Open) “His opponent might bang one out 300 yards, (small ball back then!) straightaway, and discover his ball has finished on a sharp downhill lie or in a hidden sand trap.”
