When The 155th Open returns to St Andrews from 11 to 18 July 2027, the Old Course will stage the championship for the 31st time, more than any other venue on the rota. No other course carries the same history, and no other course presents quite the same practical puzzle. St Andrews is a small coastal town. The event arriving in it is anything but.
The last Open played on the Old Course, the 150th in 2022, drew a record 290,000 spectators across the week according to the R&A, which later put the economic benefit to Fife and Scotland at more than £300 million.
VisitScotland has separately reported that the last ten Opens held in Scotland contributed around £1.36 billion to the economy. Whatever the final numbers look like in 2027, the basic shape of the week is already clear. A very large number of people will need somewhere to sleep, and many of them will not find it in St Andrews itself.
That is not a criticism of the town. It is arithmetic. The hotels, guest houses and university residences within walking distance of the first tee are limited in number and are claimed early, often years in advance.
The University of St Andrews is already selling championship week accommodation packages in its residences, and official hospitality and ticket inclusive packages have been on the market for some time.
Players, caddies, officials, broadcasters, media and corporate guests all compete for the same rooms as ordinary spectators. Once the town fills, demand moves outward, and it keeps moving until it finds a bed.
It moves in fairly predictable rings. First come the villages closest to the links, then Cupar and the fishing towns of the East Neuk, then Dundee across the Tay, then Perth, and eventually Edinburgh and beyond for visitors who are content with a longer journey or who plan to attend only some days of the championship.
What is sometimes missed in the industry conversation is that Open visitors are not one audience. Some want a hotel beside the course and will pay whatever that costs. Some come through hospitality programmes with travel arranged for them. Many also travel as groups. Golf societies, client trips, extended families, and groups of friends making a journey they may only make once. For a party of six, eight or ten people, a scattering of hotel rooms across a busy town is a poor fit even when rooms can be found. A private house solves the problem. Everyone stays under one roof and the evenings are spent together.
Groups of this kind tend to look for the same things. Enough bedrooms, and just as importantly enough bathrooms, because one shower between eight golfers is a recipe for a bad week. A living room and dining table large enough for the whole party. A proper kitchen, since many groups cook some evenings and eat out on others. Parking for cars or a minibus. Honest photographs that match the property, and honest information about how long the journey to the course actually takes. Properties that offer those things, presented clearly, are the ones best placed to appeal to visiting groups around any major championship.
John Murphy of Golf Event Stays, an accommodation platform that connects homeowners with visitors travelling to major golf events, sees the same pattern at every big championship. The company is currently building its supply of properties around The Open in 2027.
“You see it with every big event,” Murphy says. “The hotels beside the course go first, and then people start looking further out. A group of eight lads coming over from America do not want four hotel rooms in three different towns. They want a house where they can all sit down together in the evening and sort out their plans for the next day.”
The commercial effect of that demand can extend well beyond the front door of the house. Cleaners and linen services. Caterers and private chefs for groups who want a night in. Taxi firms and chauffeur companies moving people between towns, courses and the championship itself. Restaurants, pubs and food shops in places that would not normally see international golf visitors in any volume. And the golf courses of Fife, Angus and Perthshire, because many visitors who have travelled to Scotland to watch golf will want to play it too.
That last point matters for the wider industry. Many international visitors use the championship as part of a longer Scottish trip. A few days at The Open, then rounds at Carnoustie, Kingsbarns, Crail or Elie, perhaps a tee time further afield at Gleneagles or in East Lothian, and a night or two in Edinburgh on the way in or out. The championship acts as the anchor, but the spending can land across a much wider area over many more nights.
Geography still needs to be treated honestly. Cupar and the East Neuk villages are a short drive from St Andrews and are realistic bases for daily attendance. Dundee sits across the Tay and has the advantage of scale, along with rail connections through Leuchars, the station that serves St Andrews. Perth is workable for visitors who accept a longer daily run. Edinburgh is a different proposition. It suits visitors attending selected days, or those treating the capital as the start or end of a wider trip, rather than anyone hoping for a quick daily commute. At the 2022 championship the R&A operated park and ride sites and shuttle services around the town, and detailed travel arrangements for 2027 will be confirmed nearer the time.
For homeowners across Fife and the surrounding counties, the question over the next year is whether to make their property available at all, and if so how to present it properly and price it sensibly.
“Homeowners always ask what visitors actually want,” Murphy says. “It is simpler than people think. Clean, comfortable, enough bathrooms, somewhere to park, and the truth about how far it is to the course. Get those right and the rest tends to look after itself.”
The Open will occupy St Andrews for one week in July 2027. The planning around it, for accommodation providers, transport firms, restaurants, tour operators and the rest of the visitor economy of eastern Scotland, is already well under way.
Further information for homeowners and visitors planning accommodation around major golf events is available at golfeventstays.com