JONATHAN BROCKLEBANK: Golf’s best-kept secret. How to play at St Andrews for less than £5…with putter and balls thrown in!
A Daily Mail columnist highlights the St Andrews Ladies' Putting Club, known as "the Himalayas," as an affordable way to experience golf in the sport's home town, sitting right alongside the Old Course where standard rounds can cost hundreds of pounds. Designed by Old Tom Morris, the undulating putting green next to the Swilcan Burn is rated by many as the best and most challenging putting course in the world, with figures such as Tom Watson citing it as an inspiration, yet it remains open to anyone regardless of skill or budget.
An adult round on the Himalayas costs just £4, with putters and balls provided free of charge, while senior citizens pay only £2; the writer recalls prices being mere pennies when he first played there in the early 1980s. The course's enduring accessibility is traced back to its unusual origins in the 1860s, when women in the strictly male-dominated golfing world of the time began using the ground informally to practise putting, eventually leading to the founding of the St Andrews Ladies' Golf Club, the first women's golf club in the world.
- St Andrews' "Himalayas" putting course costs under £5 to play.
- It sits beside the pricier Old Course, rated one of golf's finest greens.
- Its cheap, open-to-all origins trace back to 1860s women golfers.