St Andrews Paintings and Prints

Golf has been played on the links at St Andrews, on the coast of Fife in Scotland, for at least six centuries. A charter of 1552 confirmed the townspeople's right to use the land for recreation, golf among it, and the Old Course remains public ground, run today by the St Andrews Links Trust. In 1764 the round was reduced from 22 holes to 18, and the rest of the game followed; that is where the standard 18-hole course comes from.

The Old Course was not designed so much as worn into the land. It goes out and back along a narrow strip of links, and most of its greens are shared: seven huge double greens, each with two flags, serve 14 holes, and only the 1st, 9th, 17th and 18th have greens of their own. The bunkers were sited by play and weather rather than by an architect, and many have names. Hell Bunker guards the approach on the long 14th. The Road Hole, the par-4 17th, plays over the corner of the Old Course Hotel, which stands where the railway sheds once did, to a green with a deep pot bunker in front and a road and stone wall behind it.

The 1st and 18th share one enormous fairway in front of the clubhouse of The Royal and Ancient Golf Club. The Swilcan Burn crosses the 1st, and the small stone Swilcan Bridge carries players over it on the way home, which makes it one of the most photographed places in golf. Near the 18th green is the hollow called the Valley of Sin.

The Old Course has hosted The Open 30 times, more than any other course, from 1873 to the 150th Open in 2022.

Linda Hartough's St Andrews paintings include the Road Hole, one at dawn and another from 2015, the Swilcan Bridge on the 18th, the 1st, and the 14th and 4th. Her book Love Letters to the Home of Golf collects her writing on the course.

The collection holds 10 St Andrews prints, available as canvas giclées, grande canvas giclées, textured canvas prints, paper giclées and open edition digital prints, in limited editions, artist proofs and open editions, in sizes from 11"x14" to 36"x60".