Whereas the Rusacks Resort has acquired an improve with a whole lot of the most recent facilities, the unique construction from its 1877 opening nonetheless stays resolute subsequent to the Outdated Course.
Alexander Baxter | Studio4
ST. ANDREWS, Scotland — From the balconies of an iconic St. Andrews resort — an edifice standing guard over probably the most well-known fairways in golf — visitors can simply spend a whole afternoon watching golfers hit the previous couple of pictures of their rounds. The Outdated Course’s closing stretch of holes is among the many most memorable, to not point out probably the most difficult throughout the traditional format, which in the present day bears Outdated Tom Morris’ fingerprints extra so than some other designer who had a hand within the 6,721-yard course’s configuration.
If you happen to suppose you recognize the aforementioned resort in query, you’ll possible want a second guess. No, we’re not speaking in regards to the Outdated Course Resort, a luxuriously appointed, 175-room resort most well-known for its location alongside the appropriate boundary of the seventeenth fairway, which forces golfers to hit predominantly blind pictures from the tee field of the course’s penultimate gap. There’s a lot to love about Herb Kohler’s lavish lodgings, however the Outdated Course Resort is as a lot an phantasm as it’s a sublime assortment of visitor rooms and suites, because the constructing wasn’t erected till 1968. In different phrases, the property’s deeply rooted connection to town’s most well-known golf course exists solely in its identify.
Against this, the Rusacks St Andrews is as previous as any golf resort on this planet, which can sound a tad hyperbolic. It’s, nonetheless, an irrefutable declare, for the Rusacks was the world’s first purpose-built golf resort, opening in 1877 with 70 rooms and benefiting from a location that it nonetheless enjoys — a locale adjoining to the course’s ultimate fairway and solely a flip of a wedge (or, in the course of the late nineteenth century, a niblick) from the 18th inexperienced.
Even if there was no different resort prefer it, the Rusacks couldn’t declare to be the Outdated Course Resort, not even in 1877. At the moment, the Outdated Course wasn’t but the Outdated Course, at the very least not by identify. Solely in 1895, when Outdated Tom Morris designed and constructed the New Course, did St. Andrews’ unique format earn its Outdated Course designation. Previous to that, town’s most well-known assortment of fairways and shared greens was merely often called “{the golfing} grounds of St. Andrews.”
For a lot of its existence, the Rusacks was the place to remain in St. Andrews. For greater than a century, the resort attracted a few of golf’s largest names and brightest personalities. In accordance with common supervisor Seamus Coen, Arnold Palmer by no means stayed anyplace else when he was on the town. However as the brand new millennium approached, the Rusacks had grown drained. The property was exhibiting its age, and earlier than lengthy the newer luxurious resort situated lower than 600 yards down the road had overtaken the Rusacks as the most effective within the metropolis.
In accordance with Coen, the Rusacks had turn out to be “an previous woman in want of an entire facelift.”
That makeover got here in late 2019, when Adventurous Journeys (AJ) Capital Companions acquired the resort and created a brand new portfolio of properties — Marine & Garden Inns & Resorts — which the corporate envisioned as a set of historic, boutique golf accommodations situated close to a few of the world’s most revered programs. The Rusacks turned the primary — and the flagship — property of that new model.
Instantly after the acquisition and all through a lot of the pandemic, AJ Capital oversaw a complete renovation of the constructing and its visitor rooms, which additionally included a sizeable enlargement. The ensuing 42,000-square-foot extension not solely elevated the resort’s whole room depend to 120, it additionally prompted the creation of two new eating places, a rooftop patio, and a refreshed inside design aesthetic that places a contemporary spin on conventional Scottish model.
Scroll to Proceed
“You understand that you simply’re someplace particular and virtually ineffable when you’ve been there,” Phillip Allen, the president of Marine & Garden Inns & Resorts, says each of St Andrews and the Rusacks. In truth, when Allen was launched to the resort throughout his reconnaissance journey previous to AJ Capital’s acquisition in 2019, he was taken out onto the balcony of the resort’s most spectacular suite (now often called the Younger Tom Morris suite) and his jaw instantly dropped as he gazed out over the primary and 18th fairways, the R&A Clubhouse, and West Sands Seashore within the distance. “I instantly fell in love with the property and the vacation spot and the view,” he says.
The views from that suite’s sprawling balcony (in addition to from the ten balconies connected to the property’s new Swilcan King or Swilcan Twin rooms) could also be engaging, however they pale compared to the panoramic vistas that visitors can take pleasure in from the rooftop terrace connected to the Rusacks’ flagship restaurant, Eighteen. It’s price noting that these unobstructed views, which might be loved from a perch excessive above the Outdated Course’s opening and shutting fairways, didn’t exist previous to the Rusacks’ current enlargement, because the resort’s new wing was constructed on a parcel of land that beforehand served as a parking zone.
Talking of the resort’s flagship restaurant, Eighteen focuses on open-flame cooking led by Chef Derek Johnstone, whose notoriety was born in 2008 when he received BBC’s inaugural season of MasterChef: The Professionals. The glass locker of dry-aged Scotch beef on show close to the restaurant’s entrance supplies all of the steering that first-time patrons will want. Right here, distinctive cuts of beef are ready and served with precision.
For all the facilities that contribute to the Rusacks’ engaging new persona, the resort’s best attract remains to be its location. From the again steps that spill out onto Hyperlinks Street, visitors can attain the primary tee of the Outdated Course in just a few minutes, whereas a stroll to the starter’s huts for the New Course, the Jubilee, the Eden or the Strathtyrum programs take between seven and quarter-hour relying on the course being performed.
Past the championship layouts inside strolling distance of the resort, at the very least half a dozen different travel-worthy programs are lower than a 30-minute drive from the Rusacks’ entrance door. These locations embrace fashionable layouts resembling Dumbarnie Hyperlinks and Kingsbarns Golf Hyperlinks, the latter of which Coen believes is without doubt one of the 5 greatest hyperlinks programs on this planet. Nevertheless, historic venues, resembling Crail {Golfing} Society, are additionally a brief drive away.
“It’s simply an oasis,” Coen says of Crail, which was based in 1875. “You type of get away from time while you’re on the market. It’s an attractive course with some nice views looking to the water, and it’s check of golf performed over traditional hyperlinks terrain.”
Regardless of Coen’s affinity for Kingsbarns and the numerous memorable rounds that he’s performed on a number of of the secondary programs operated by the St. Andrews Hyperlinks Belief, the Outdated Course nonetheless reigns supreme within the 52-year-old’s eyes. It’s the course that he would select to play for his last-ever spherical, in addition to the format that he would choose if he might solely play one course for the remainder of his life.
“You by no means get complacent about standing on that first tee,” he says. “Irrespective of what number of instances you’ve performed it, there’s a bit of sense of nervousness that you simply really feel as you begin a brand new spherical on the Outdated Course.”
In lots of respects, simply the sight of these grounds — of gamers teeing off on the primary or holing their ultimate putts on the 18th inexperienced — can encourage related visceral responses, which makes each morning a particular one for visitors who’ve the great fortune of looking their image home windows or stepping out onto their balconies to soak up that scene.
“St Andrews is the mecca of golf — if you happen to love the sport it’s a must to get there at the very least as soon as in your life,” says Allen. “And I’d put the Rusacks up in opposition to some other golf resort on this planet for its location. You may stand in your balcony or at your window and watch folks coming and going all day. It has the most effective location and greatest views in the most effective golf metropolis on this planet. That’s exhausting to beat.”
