A course that exists just one day a year inspired our best-read travel story of 2024

“Imagine a golf course worthy of the World Top 100, a classic Scottish links, tucked along the coast just 15 miles from St. Andrews that few people are aware of and even fewer get to play.” As enticing openers go, it was tough to top the first line of what turned out to be the best-read travel story on Golf.com in 2024.

Its author, Timothy Gallant, a GOLF Magazine course rater based in Scotland, went on to paint a portrait of a purist’s playground, with bouncy turf, “spectacular sea views” and “an eclectic set of holes that imprint themselves in memory.”

“Its par 3s are cunning, its par 4s as original as those of any links. Its routing works harmoniously with the winds,” Gallant wrote.

There was just one catch, Gallant noted. Landing a tee time on this alluring-sounding layout is pretty much impossible — not so much because the course is exclusive but because it is elusive. 

It is only open one day a year.

Come again? How does a course with a mayfly’s lifespan exist in the first place?

In his story, which you can revisit here, Gallant discussed the history of a one-of-a-kind links and the rare opportunity he got to play it.

Like a lot of great stories about golf in Scotland, the tale has a tie to Old Tom Morris, who in the latter half of the 1800s, built out an existing 9-hole course into a full 18.

The expanded layout, along the Firth of Forth, sat along the boundary line between two links, Leven and Lundin, and it was beloved. So coveted were its grounds, in fact, that by the turn of the century, the course had been pulled apart, with nine holes going to Leven and nine holes going to Lundin — a King Solomon-like scenario that left the original 18, known as the Old at Leven, cloven in two, with a dyke running between the nines.

From that point on, golfers on either side of the dividing line could only dream of playing the Old in its entirety.

Once a year, though, that dream comes true when the clubs at Leven and Lundin come together for a friendly competition called the McDonald Trophy, held on the reconstituted links.

Gallant scored an invite to the event and recounted the experience of what ranks among the toughest tee times in the game.

Someday, it might get easier. In recent years, the memberships at Leven and Lundin have discussed the possibility of allowing limited outside play on the original 18. If that were to happen, the lifespan of the world’s most ephemeral course would have to be extended beyond a single day.