A Rejuvenated St. Andrews Hotel Shines Brighter Than Ever Before

For golf enthusiasts who are planning a trip to the birthplace of the game, one historic golf hotel — the very first of its kind — offers experiences as unique and compelling as its location.

ST. ANDREWS, Scotland — From the balconies of an iconic St. Andrews hotel — an edifice standing guard over one of the most famous fairways in golf — guests can easily spend an entire afternoon watching golfers hit the last few shots of their rounds. The Old Course’s closing stretch of holes is among the most memorable, not to mention the most challenging across the ancient layout, which today bears Old Tom Morris’ fingerprints more so than any other designer who had a hand in the 6,721-yard course’s configuration.

If you think you know the aforementioned hotel in question, you’ll likely need a second guess. No, we’re not talking about the Old Course Hotel, a luxuriously appointed, 175-room resort most famous for its location along the right boundary of the 17th fairway, which forces golfers to hit predominantly blind shots from the tee box of the course’s penultimate hole. There’s plenty to like about Herb Kohler’s lavish lodgings, but the Old Course Hotel is as much an illusion as it is an elegant collection of guest rooms and suites, since the building wasn’t erected until 1968. In other words, the property’s deeply rooted connection to the city’s most famous golf course exists solely in its name.

By contrast, the Rusacks St Andrews is as old as any golf hotel in the world, which may sound a tad hyperbolic. It is, however, an irrefutable claim, for the Rusacks was the world’s first purpose-built golf hotel, opening in 1877 with 70 rooms and benefiting from a location that it still enjoys — a locale adjacent to the course’s final fairway and only a flip of a wedge (or, during the late 19th century, a niblick) from the 18th green.

Despite the fact that there was no other hotel like it, the Rusacks couldn’t claim to be the Old Course Hotel, not even in 1877. At that time, the Old Course wasn’t yet the Old Course, at least not by name. Only in 1895, when Old Tom Morris designed and built the New Course, did St. Andrews’ original layout earn its Old Course designation. Prior to that, the city’s most famous collection of fairways and shared greens was simply known as “the golfing grounds of St. Andrews.”

For much of its existence, the Rusacks was the place to stay in St. Andrews. For more than a century, the hotel attracted some of golf’s biggest names and brightest personalities. According to general manager Seamus Coen, Arnold Palmer never stayed anywhere else when he was in town. But as the new millennium approached, the Rusacks had grown tired. The property was showing its age, and before long the newer luxury hotel located less than 600 yards down the street had overtaken the Rusacks as the best in the city.

According to Coen, the Rusacks had become “an old lady in need of a complete facelift.”

That makeover came in late 2019, when Adventurous Journeys (AJ) Capital Partners acquired the hotel and created a new portfolio of properties — Marine & Lawn Hotels & Resorts — which the company envisioned as a collection of historic, boutique golf hotels located near some of the world’s most revered courses. The Rusacks became the first — and the flagship — property of that new brand.

Immediately after the acquisition and throughout much of the pandemic, AJ Capital oversaw a comprehensive renovation of the building and its guest rooms, which also included a sizeable expansion. The resulting 42,000-square-foot extension not only increased the hotel’s total room count to 120, it also prompted the creation of two new restaurants, a rooftop patio, and a refreshed interior design aesthetic that puts a modern spin on traditional Scottish style.

“You know that you’re someplace special and almost ineffable once you’ve been there,” Phillip Allen, the president of Marine & Lawn Hotels & Resorts, says both of St Andrews and the Rusacks. In fact, when Allen was introduced to the hotel during his reconnaissance trip prior to AJ Capital’s acquisition in 2019, he was taken out onto the balcony of the hotel’s most impressive suite (now known as the Young Tom Morris suite) and his jaw immediately dropped as he gazed out over the first and 18th fairways, the R&A Clubhouse, and West Sands Beach in the distance. “I immediately fell in love with the property and the destination and the view,” he says.

The views from that suite’s sprawling balcony (as well as from the 10 balconies attached to the property’s new Swilcan King or Swilcan Twin rooms) may be enticing, but they pale in comparison to the panoramic vistas that guests can enjoy from the rooftop terrace attached to the Rusacks’ flagship restaurant, Eighteen. It’s worth noting that those unobstructed views, which can be enjoyed from a perch high above the Old Course’s opening and closing fairways, didn’t exist prior to the Rusacks’ recent expansion, as the hotel’s new wing was built on a parcel of land that previously served as a parking lot.

Speaking of the hotel’s flagship restaurant, Eighteen specializes in open-flame cooking led by Chef Derek Johnstone, whose notoriety was born in 2008 when he won BBC’s inaugural season of MasterChef: The Professionals. The glass locker of dry-aged Scotch beef on display near the restaurant’s entrance provides all the guidance that first-time patrons will need. Here, exceptional cuts of beef are prepared and served with precision.

For all of the amenities that contribute to the Rusacks’ enticing new persona, the hotel’s greatest allure is still its location. From the back steps that spill out onto Links Road, guests can reach the first tee of the Old Course in only a few minutes, while a walk to the starter’s huts for the New Course, the Jubilee, the Eden or the Strathtyrum courses take between seven and 15 minutes depending on the course being played. 

Beyond the championship layouts within walking distance of the hotel, at least half a dozen other travel-worthy courses are less than a 30-minute drive from the Rusacks’ front door. These destinations include modern layouts such as Dumbarnie Links and Kingsbarns Golf Links, the latter of which Coen believes is one of the five best links courses in the world. However, historic venues, such as Crail Golfing Society, are also a short drive away.

“It’s just an oasis,” Coen says of Crail, which was founded in 1875. “You kind of get away from time when you’re out there. It’s a beautiful course with some great views looking out to the water, and it’s a good test of golf played over classic links terrain.”

Despite Coen’s affinity for Kingsbarns and the many memorable rounds that he’s played on several of the secondary courses operated by the St. Andrews Links Trust, the Old Course still reigns supreme in the 52-year-old’s eyes. It’s the course that he would choose to play for his last-ever round, as well as the layout that he would pick if he could only play one course for the rest of his life.

“You never get complacent about standing on that first tee,” he says. “No matter how many times you’ve played it, there’s a little sense of nervousness that you feel as you start a new round on the Old Course.”

In many respects, just the sight of those grounds — of players teeing off on the first or holing their final putts on the 18th green — can inspire similar visceral responses, which makes every morning a special one for guests who have the good fortune of looking out their picture windows or stepping out onto their balconies to take in that scene.

“St Andrews is the mecca of golf — if you love the game you have to get there at least once in your life,” says Allen. “And I would put the Rusacks up against any other golf hotel in the world for its location. You can stand on your balcony or at your window and watch people coming and going all day. It has the best location and best views in the best golf city in the world. That’s hard to beat.”