Staggering numbers show just how much St Andrews is worth to the Home of Golf

St Andrews Old Course 18th Green

The economic impact of visitors travelling to St Andrews to play at the Home of Golf is equivalent to the country hosting three Opens Championships every year, according to new research.

Visitors and their families coming to play on the seven courses in St Andrews is worth a massive £317 million annually in total economic impact to Scotland. This supports 4,300 full time jobs in the country, underlining that St Andrews Links is one of Scotland’s major tourism assets.

The detailed research – conducted by the Sport Industry Research Centre at Sheffield Hallam University – calculated the amount visitors spent directly on golf in St Andrews as well on hotels, restaurants, bars, shops and local travel providers.

St Andrews Links, which manages seven courses including the Old, New, Jubilee and Castle courses, welcomes an average of 2,000 playing visitors every week, the report found. Around 72% of those visitors came from overseas, with the USA (40%) and Canada (6%) being the key markets. A further 28% of visits were from the UK, with the remaining 26% coming from elsewhere. 

The report also highlighted just how positively visitors viewed their spend. Some 84% said they were “likely or very likely” to return in the future, highlighting the unique nature of a St Andrews trip and the world-class levels of service delivery. 

And there is little chance the attraction of visiting St Andrews is going to diminish anytime soon. In fact, it was recently announced that the Old Course would host the Open again in 2027.

Neil Coulson, chief executive of St Andrews Links Trust, said: “This is the first such study looking solely at the impact of golf in St Andrews on the town and the wider Scottish economy. 

“It clearly shows the massive impact on the town and that our visitors are delivering a boost to communities across Scotland each and every year. This impact has probably been undervalued in the past.”

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St Andrews Links Trust is a charity and all of its revenue is reinvested into the sport, facilities and in community initiatives across the region.

In St Andrews itself, for every £1 that passes through the tills of St Andrews Links from visitors, an additional £3.43 is generated for other businesses in the town.

Of the 283,000 rounds played on the seven St Andrews Links courses in 2023, 152,000 (54%) were played by visitors to St Andrews.

More than half of visitors combined their St Andrews Links trip with a visit to another iconic layout in Scotland. The most popular were Kingsbarns (29%), followed by Carnoustie (25%), Dumbarnie (15%) and Crail (14%). This finding demonstrates how visits to St Andrews are a catalyst for further tourism activity in Scotland.

The Scottish Government’s Business Minister Richard Lochhead said: “Scotland has a proud reputation as the birthplace of the game and St Andrews is home to many links courses, not least the Old Course, which are the envy of the world.

“This report hits home the scale of the benefits we all reap from the Trust’s courses, alongside the broader impact of golf tourism, which boosts the economy by £300 million every year and supports around 5,000 jobs.”